Wicked Girls
Page 6
Heart-shaped pink and white
blossoms sweeten the wind.
Winter’s scraggly witch hazel
and furred pussy-willow buds
crouch not alone
on the hillside.
The spring air smells
ripe and ready.
IMPIOUS DISRUPTIONS
Margaret Walcott, 17
Meeting seems smaller near the pulpit.
’Tis like we be closer to the Lord.
The front pew smells not
of dung-covered boots.
Martha Corey grips her bench,
refusing to look on us girls
now she been accused.
Though none dares defy
a preacher during sermon,
Abigail do rise and say
to the visiting Reverend,
“Stand up and name your text.”
Ann announces that Goody Corey’s
spirit and her yellow bird
perch high above the congregation.
She says the black-eyed bird flies
to Reverend Lawson’s hat
hanging on the front door peg.
“I see it too!” Betty says.
Mercy and Elizabeth nod and agree.
Do they all really see except for me?
Abigail cries and points at Goody Corey,
“Witch and her familiar!”
Isaac shakes his head
when she cries out.
His eyes scold and judge.
His face full of disgust
like Abigail speaks
in drunk soldier’s tongue.
Reverend Parris and Mister Putnam
hush us then: “Quiet your tongues
and let good Minister Lawson
finish his sermon.”
I sneak behind the meetinghouse
before afternoon sermon,
but for the first time
Isaac be not there.
My stomach squeezes
and I trip over a rock.
Why is he not there?
What have I done?
Did he not like what I did
in the forest?
Where is Mercy?
Someone seizes my shoulders.
Martha Corey turns me to her and scolds,
“I will dispel these accusations.
I am a Gospel woman.
I will stand victorious
against you and your mischievous friends.”
Her breath steams across my cheek.
But before I can speak one word,
the other girls circle round me
like the Queen’s guard
till Martha Corey be gone.
Ann says, “Do not fear, Margaret,
that witch will be known.”
I nod at her and the other girls.
Except for Mercy. I stare on her.
Sunlight runs over Mercy
and her golden temptress hair
liken some waterfall of jewels.
Who will protect me
from the witch
among us girls?
DISTRACTED CHILDREN
Mercy Lewis, 17
The courtroom chatters and churns.
Goody Corey raises her eyes at us,
as if to say, “I’ll get you girls.”
Ann’s eyes roll back until
only the whites show,
and someone in the crowd cries,
“Bewitched!”
“We must not believe
all that these distracted children say,”
Martha Corey insists as she stands
for examination. Her eyes twitch
gray as a storm. She smooths her skirt,
then rubs her hands together.
Ann, Abigail, Margaret and Betty
all mimic Martha Corey
with the sharp jerking movement
of a wheel catching in a rut,
then pulling free.
“Stop praying, Elizabeth,”
Ann speaks without moving her lips.
She pulls Elizabeth up from her knees.
“Forget not, Martha Corey beat you too.”
“Perhaps I was deceived.
Perhaps we were all deceived.
It is not too late to beg forgiveness.”
Elizabeth looks to Margaret.
“I know Goody Corey is a witch, Lizzie.
She pricked me last night.”
Margaret reveals red bumps on her back.
Elizabeth nods. She rubs her arm
and curls her hands into her sleeves.
Abigail says, “The Devil whispers
in Goody Corey’s ear.”
Ann hollers, “I see the turning spit
and a man roasting on it,
just beside Goody Corey.”
Abigail speaks again,
a cavern’s echo of Ann,
“Goody Corey roasts a man
for the Devil.”
Margaret and I are to suffer next.
We feel jabbed and strangled
and collapse to the floor.
Margaret kicks her boot
a little too close to my head.
Through clenched teeth I tell her,
“Mind yourself.”
Margaret points at Goody Corey,
but it is me she names sinner
with her eyes as she screams out the word.
“Any woman who bears babies
out of wedlock must be a witch.”
They bind Goody Corey’s hands
with sailing rope. Still,
she flutters her fingers.
Each time she does, our fingers wrench,
shot up by her Devil’s lightning.
I stare at my hands,
fingers hooked in pain,
and see something new.
These hands are not just
implements to serve.
They are weapons.
The gavel smashes down.
Goody Corey,
like all other witches
the girls and I name,
shall face trial.
CAN WE SEE GOOD?
Mercy Lewis, 17
“I told them witches
I will not eat. I will not
drink. It is blood. It is not
the Bread of Life.
It comes not from Christ.
And I spat at Goody Proctor,
the wife of the tavern keeper,
the one selling whiskey blood.”
I pant, uncertain whether I can continue.
Mister Putnam strokes my hand
as though I am his child and says,
“Do tell us, Mercy, what next ye saw.”
“A shining figure comes
and all the witches fled.
All I could see was a glorious light,
and the voices of Christ
singing like crystal bells
and telling me I am worthy
to take the book, the Book of Life
from Christ. And then the angels,
all of them in rows singing psalms,
and I pled, ‘Please let me stay here,
let me not leave.’ But then I woke.”
Ann says, “Mercy is chosen.
She’s been shown good, not evil,
in the Invisible World.
She is the first to see it.”
But Missus Putnam is quick
to shake her head,
“No, Ann dear, others
have seen a man in white.”
Mister Putnam hovers near my cheek.
He kisses my forehead.
“Mercy, Satan doth love to present
himself as an Angel of Light.
Good that you did not sign that book.
It were Satan in disguise.”
The tears come fast
as a mudslide down my cheeks.
We must see evil.
But then the man I serve
kneels to me,
with his kerchief.
What shall I do?
POWER BEYOND THE PULPIT
Mercy Lewis, 17
The meetinghouse during lecture
might well be the courthouse.
All of us girls sit in the front pew
like we are the town council,
the heads of family, like we are
disciples of his Grace.
The Reverend blasts,
“Have I not chosen you twelve?”
He looks past us girls and declares,
“And one of you is the Devil.”
Whispers whirl around the room.
Eyeballs wander like seeds in wind.
Who is the Devil among us,
the one who betrays?
Which of the good folk
is really a witch?
And then the eyeballs settle,
how water smooths after storm.
The eyes look not
to the preacher to answer
their questions, to guide them,
but to us girls, the Afflicted.
We are the ones who see witches.
The good folk nearly plead,
“Pray tell us who be the witches,
who are the devils in our midst?”
PRAY
Margaret Walcott, 17
Isaac gone before
I might turn to look.
The meetinghouse drains
of members, except for Elizabeth,
who kneels on the hard floor,
her head bowed down.
“Oh, Margaret, fall to your knees
and pray with me.”
She grasps my hand
and drags me to the ground.
“Dear Lord, guide our spectral sight.
We follow your call
and bow humbly before you.”
Elizabeth’s eyes pulse
and her body quivers.
“They wait for us outside.”
I tug her arm now.
I do not want Mercy Lewis
broken from my sight
such that Mercy might make
her eyes fall ’pon Isaac,
or worse, his eyes fall ’pon her.
I kneel and whisper in Elizabeth’s ear.
“I see you be cleversome,
but pray let us do this not today.”
Elizabeth just stares forward
as in a trance. She lies down
’pon the floor with her hands
laced in worship above her head.
“O Lord, lead me in your ways.”
She stops all moving
and seems not to breathe.
Be she truly tormented by a witch?
The Reverend stalks above us.
“Has a specter hold of Elizabeth?”
he asks me.
I nod yes.
But then Elizabeth pops up,
as if she’s possessed, and shakes her head.
“There are no specters here.
We pray to the Lord for guidance.”
How dare she defy me?
She must be ill. I clench her arm
tighter than I did intend.
Lizzie tugs down her sleeve.
“Or perhaps Margaret did see a specter,”
Elizabeth says, and lowers her eyes.
THERE IS ANOTHER: WHAT TO DO WITH THE PROCTORS’ MAID?
Mercy Lewis, 17
Not everything in a garden
belongs.
Ruth Warren,
the Proctors’ maid,
starts crying witch,
naming the same
witches we do see.
She follows Ann
around after meeting,
inquires about joining
us later at Ingersoll’s.
Ann asks if we should
fold Ruth into the blanket
of our group.
I scratch my head.
“What know you of Ruth Warren?”
“She be maid to John
and Rebecca Proctor.
And my father and John Proctor
stand on different sides
of the church aisle.”
I advise, “Let us not invite
her into the group yet,
but test her loyalty.
We have been given
a power here together,
we best retain—
to do so we must be strong
and we must be stable.
Nothing foul among us.”
LEADERSHIP
Ann Putnam Jr., 12
Mercy and I agree—
in order for us to be stable
someone must take up the head,
must direct the troop through battle,
one of us hold the torch
and shout out command,
else we shall see things unlike
and our voice be scattered,
the body that makes us strong
cut into many pieces.
Betty too young, Abigail too eager,
Elizabeth wavers like a loose tooth,
and Margaret without rank and stature
and breeding and brain—
It must be me.
I am the rightful leader.
ANNOYANCE
Ann Putnam Jr., 12
“They sent Betty away.”
Abigail heaves and snorts as she speaks.
She wedges next to me, so I squeeze
into the back of the bench.
I search for Mercy, who was to meet me
at Ingersoll’s an hour ago.
“Reverend now depends on me alone
to tell him of the Invisible World.
I seen witches all last night. Goody Proctor
and Goody Nurse and Goody Good.”
“Abigail.” I wish to fasten my hand
over her mouth. “Tell not our elders
what you see without first speaking to me.”
“But Reverend wants me to—”
I cut her words. “Speak not.
Do ye understand me?”
She nods. At this moment,
the sight of Abigail, the scratch of her voice,
brings my lunch to my throat.
Where be Mercy?
“I must go,” I say.
“Oh, me too. I’ll come with thee,”
Abigail chirps.
I hurry toward the door.
“What have ye seen?” Goodman Rhea
asks as I make to leave the tavern.
“Goody Proctor did bite and pinch me.”
Abigail thrusts forth her arm.
“Let us see.”
Goodman Rhea bars my exit.
I wish to box Abigail in the cheek:
again she acts without my instruction.
If only Reverend Parris had sent away
both his daughter and his niece.
AN INNOCENT RIDE
Mercy Lewis, 17
A young man with shoulders broad as a lake
trails Mister Putnam round the stables.
“Fine mare,” he says, his voice
deep earth brown.
“She’ll produce fine foal, I believe.
I’ll not be trading her if that be
what ye desire, Isaac Farrar.”
Mister shakes his head.
“No, sir,” Isaac says.
“But might I take her for a ride?”
Mister nods, and Isaac mounts
the spotted mare.
As he grabs hold the reins
his eyes saddle upon me.
I shade red to be caught watching him
for I never do care to observe anyone,
and I ought be slopping the pigs.
Mister Putnam notes my presence with a smile
and calls, “Mercy, come yonder
and fetch a cup of water.
I hand Mister Putnam the tin,
and he squeezes his arm around me.
She and my daughter Ann,
the Lord has called them.”
Mister ruffles Wilson’s head,
but calls not his dog away from me.
Isaac fixes upon me
without cessation or flinch.
“I be acquainted with Mercy,” he says.
“Beg your pardon, but I do not recall—”
“Do you ride?” he asks like a gunshot,
before I can finish my speech.
Mister twists his face, such that I cannot
tell if it be in anger or pleasure.
“’Tis not proper for a servant—” I begin.
“Do you ride?” Isaac insists, and leads
his own horse over to me.
“Yes, I ride,” I say, and hold fast
the reins of Isaac’s gaze. I remember
him now—he helped me carry my firewood.
I nearly wish to smile at him, but I cannot say why.
“She cannot ride.” Mister grinds his teeth.
“She might find fit and fall.
It be too dangerous. It be not proper.”
Mister turns me round and pushes
me toward the house.
I hear him say to Isaac,
“I think it best if I rest
Beatrice this afternoon.
She was rode hard this morning.
And she does not take well
to strangers.”
THE PROCTORS’ MAID RECANTS HER AFFLICTION
Margaret Walcott, 17
The note Ruth Warren
nails to the meetinghouse door
Ann reads to us: