by Megan Chance
“Charity,” I said, softening my voice, “you must believe I am doing everything I can to keep Satan from you—”
She only shook her head and raised her tearstained face to mine. “I am already lost. ’Tis you who must be careful, Father. ’Tis you.”
Chapter 24
I HAD NOT SEEN SUCH PANIC IN THE VILLAGE SINCE THE FEAR OF THE recent Indian attacks. Goody Osborne had been named as the third witch. The old woman had long been the village scandal: She had lived in sin with her indentured servant before she finally married him.
There were those who saw Satan in every shadow; they told tales of how Goody Good had bewitched their cattle and how strange and terrible beasts followed Goody Osborne about, only to disappear upon closer examination. And Tituba…Was she not an Indian, too, if only one from the West Indies? They practiced wicked and horrible things there: spells to bring illness, to call up Satan, to tell the future.
I kept my family as far from the terror as I could. Charity did not leave the house, even to milk the cow. I kept her busy studying scripture, and it seemed that since I had told her I planned to send her out, she applied herself with fervor. She spoke no more of evil; she kept from the window. ’Twas as if she were my daughter again, and the frightened girl of the other night an impostor.
When Good and Tituba and Osborne were arrested, I was relieved, along with the other village folk, but it was not over so easily.
The children did not recover; they complained still of torments. And now there were two others added to the afflicted, and these names frightened me more than the others: Mary Walcott and Mercy Lewis. Both of Thomas Putnam’s house. Both friends of Charity’s.
I did not tell my daughter this. I prayed for the week to hurry by so that I could send her away to Salem Town and peace. The Saturday Daniel Poole and I had agreed upon could not come quickly enough. The accused witches would be examined before they were committed to prison to await trial. If Charity were still here, I would not be able to keep her from rumors, which had a way of riding the very air. I hoped this questioning would wait a few days—at least until after I’d sent her away.
But I was too late. Monday afternoon, I came into the house to find Hannah Penney already there, a grim look on her face as she nursed little Faith. Susannah stood at the hearth, looking stunned, and Jude whimpered and tried to escape from Charity, who held her tight against her side.
“What is it?” I asked.
Susannah said, “Hannah has told us that the examinations are to take place tomorrow at Ingersoll’s.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Aye.” Hannah nodded. “John Hathorne will come from town for it.”
“Perhaps he can bring sense again to this confusion,” I said.
Charity’s fingers were frozen around Jude’s little arm.
“Let your sister go,” I told her.
Charity looked frightened. “She must sit here by me. Jude, be a good girl. Sit still.”
Jude squirmed away. “I want Auntie.”
“Come then.” Susannah went over to the bench, and held out her arms, and Jude threw herself into them. Charity’s hand went to her throat—a simple gesture, but in it I saw again the image of Annie Putnam standing in the hall at the parsonage, her hands wrapped around her own throat, horror in her eyes.
Charity looked to me. “Is it true, Father? Is it true what Goody Penney says?”
In irritation, I glanced at Hannah, who shrugged and said, “’Tis true enough. Now that they’ve arrested those witches, I pray there’ll be an end to the afflictions.”
It struck me then, what she had told Charity. “Dear God,” I said, “you cursed woman. Can you not keep your mouth shut?”
Hannah looked stunned. “I have only said the truth.”
“It is true, then, Father?” Charity said. “Mercy? And—and Mary?”
“Aye, ’tis true,” I said brusquely. I gestured to Hannah. “Get back to your own house. Gossip somewhere else.”
“But I—”
“Go,” I told her.
She was sputtering, but she gathered up my daughter and hastened to the door. When she was gone, I said to Susannah, “Until next week, keep Hannah away.”
“I must see them,” Charity said urgently. “I must see Mary.”
“That is the last thing you shall do,” I told her. “You shall stay here until Saturday, when you will go to town.”
Susannah frowned when I said it, though she said not a word. She went to the fire and I felt her disapproval linger in the air and wondered why she censured me, when I was doing what she had asked me to do, when I was sending my daughter away. I felt besieged on all sides, and when Charity lapsed into silence, I was grateful. When she went to the window, I did not say a word. Four days, I thought. Four days until she was gone to town.
I went to the examinations alone. The frosty breaths and excited talk of fifty or more villagers filled the air while I—with some other members of the militia, and the constable’s men—stood guard along the road from town. We waited for the magistrates, then fell into step beside them and held back the crowd as John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin rode to the doors of Ingersoll’s, where Samuel Parris and Tom Putnam waited to greet them.
“We had not expected such a crowd,” Tom said as we paused at the door. He looked harried and distracted, as if he had passed a bad night—no doubt he had. “There won’t be room for everyone.”
At this, the crowd began to murmur. There were angry shouts behind me.
“You can’t keep us out, Putnam!”
“We’ve a right to see this!”
Parris stroked his chin. “Aye. ’Tis better if everyone has a chance to see.”
“Is there a bigger building?” Hathorne asked as he dismounted. He was long-faced, with brown eyes, a serious mouth, and an air of efficiency that seemed to calm the crowd.
“A place not too far away,” added Corwin. “I’ve ridden enough for one morning.”
“There’s the meetinghouse,” Parris said. “We have held the entire village there.”
’Twas an exaggeration—there had never been a time when the entire village had attended one of Parris’s sermons—but no one argued it. Hathorne and Corwin agreed, and we moved to the meetinghouse. My neighbors filed inside, and we pushed back the pulpit to make room for a large table brought from Ingersoll’s for the magistrates and the court reporter to sit at. I heard a roar from outside as the afflicted girls came—there were only the four—Annie Putnam and bosomy Elizabeth Hubbard, young Betsey Parris and her cousin Abigail Williams—as they were the ones who’d accused these women. The littlest Parris girl looked frightened, but the rest were calm and clear-eyed as they made their way through the crowd and sat where Hathorne directed them in the first row of pews.
The meetinghouse was more crowded than it had been on any Sunday or Thursday lecture. The benches were filled; people stood against the walls. The galleries creaked from the weight of so many witnesses. I stood beside Sam Nurse and Joseph Putnam, each of us holding a gun, militia-ready.
The crowd fell into abrupt, tense silence, and then a whisper set through the meetinghouse: “They’re here. They’re here.” There was a commotion outside as the prisoners were brought up. Hathorne and Corwin took their seats at the table, and Ezekiel Cheever sat beside them to serve as court reporter.
“Bring in the first one,” Hathorne said. He glanced down at the paper before him. “Sarah Good.”
“The bar!” someone in the crowd cried. “Where is the bar?”
I glanced to the front—there was no bar of justice. Putnam rushed forward and put a chair opposite the magistrates’ table, turning it around for the tall back to serve as the bar.
Hathorne said to the girls, “Turn away,” and each of them did, lowering their eyes as Sarah Good was jerked down the aisle to the makeshift court. Goody Good was manacled, and the chains seemed too big and heavy on her wrists, though she was not a small woman. She was large-boned, but too thin, an
d obviously many months pregnant. Her gray-brown hair straggled into her eyes, and she was dirty and ill-kempt. ’Twas hard to know which was the dirt of the prison she’d spent the night in, and which her natural state. She was angry and sullen, muttering to herself as Constable Locker brought her before a crowd that had fallen into a hushed silence.
She should have been docile; ’twould have bought the crowd’s sympathy, and mine, but she did not submit as they brought her to the bar and forcibly set her hands upon it. There was nothing but scorn in her eyes as she faced the magistrates. George Locker and his men stood at either side of her, wary and waiting.
John Hathorne rose slowly, clearing his throat, and pulled at his sleeve before he looked at her. From where I stood, near the front, I could see his gaze—as scornful as hers.
“Sarah Good,” he began, raising his voice so it echoed throughout the eaves, deep and powerful. “Sarah Good, what evil spirit have you familiarity with?”
“None.”
“Have you made no contract with the Devil?”
“No.”
“Why do you hurt these children?”
She spat. “I do not hurt them. I scorn it.”
The crowd was silent. I, too, leaned forward, impatient to hear. Hathorne took a step closer. “Who do you employ, then, to do it?”
“I employ nobody.” Her voice was harsh and strident. “I am falsely accused.”
There was a murmuring in the crowd. I saw frustration in Hathorne’s expression. With a flourish, he turned on his heel, toward the girls, who had obeyed him to a one in keeping their eyes from the woman.
“Children,” he said slowly, “will you look at the accused? Tell us: Is she the one who torments you?”
Abigail Williams, Parris’s niece, was the first to look. No sooner had she laid eyes on the woman than she screeched in a high whine. “Aye! Aye! ’Tis her! Oh, why do you torment me, Goody Good?”
At that, ’twas as if Hell itself emptied into the meetinghouse. Plump, pretty Elizabeth Hubbard fell to the floor in a fit; Annie Putnam pulled at her pale hair as if she would tear it out. Betsey Parris screamed that she was being pinched and bitten. Some watching rushed forward, trying to help the girls; others ran for the doors. Hathorne cried out vainly for silence. ’Twas nothing but screaming and crying and the rush of footsteps. The galleries shook and creaked, and I—along with Sam Nurse—grabbed my gun from my shoulder as if it were some sort of attack—though there was no one to shoot, nothing to do but stand there helplessly and watch the examinations fall apart around us. Even Sarah Good looked startled and afraid.
Parris yelled, “Turn her away! Turn her away!” Locker rushed forward and forcibly turned Goody Good’s head from the children.
’Twas miraculous.…The girls quieted immediately. Elizabeth and Abigail were in a heap on the floor, and the moment the woman turned, they rose, breathing heavily, showing pink welts and teeth marks on their arms. Annie Putnam had been collapsed in Mary Sibley’s arms, and now she stood. Little Betsey Parris was still weeping, but quietly, as one does after a fierce scare. The entire room seemed to freeze in chaos: benches upended, people halted midrise or in the act of fleeing through the door. My own heart was racing. At the girls’ sudden peace, the room gradually returned to order, but ’twas a different feel to it now. The expectation had turned to horror.
Parris, who had seen such affliction for many days now, looked drained. At the table, Jonathan Corwin opened and closed his mouth like a gaping cod. John Hathorne seemed amazed. When he turned back to Good, ’twas with a vengeance.
“Sarah Good, why do you not tell us the truth? Why do you thus torment these poor children?”
“I do not torment them!”
“Who do you employ, then?”
“I employ nobody. I scorn it.” The same words as before, but they had lost their power, and she her anger. She looked frightened now, and desperate.
“How came they thus tormented?”
“What do I know? Whoever you brought into the meetinghouse with you.”
“We brought you into the meetinghouse.”
“But you brought in two more.”
“Who was it, then, that tormented the children?”
She looked puzzled. Then her expression cleared. “’Twas Osborne.”
I closed my eyes briefly in horror. The murmurs of the crowd—appalled, disturbed, terrified—filled my ears. Hathorne was as one on to blood scent. He leaned close. “I have reports that you go muttering from people’s houses when they displease you. What is it you say?”
She looked confused and afraid. “It is the Commandments. I may say my Commandments, I hope.”
“What Commandment is it?”
She hesitated, her confusion more apparent than ever.
Hathorne said, “Who do you serve?”
“I serve God.”
“What God do you serve?”
“He that made Heaven and the Earth,” she said sharply.
“Here, sir,” came a voice from the pews. I turned to see Sarah Good’s husband rising. It had been so long since I had seen him, I had nearly forgotten his existence. He was thin and bowed, many of his teeth rotting or gone.
“Who are you?” Hathorne asked.
“William Good. That woman’s husband, God save me.”
“What have you to say? Is this woman a witch?”
“If she is not, she will be one very quickly,” he said.
“Why would you say such a thing? Has she afflicted you? Have you seen anything to make you believe this of her?”
“No, not in this nature,” Good said, gesturing to the children. “But she is a disobedient wife. She does not respect me or heed me. Indeed…I may say with tears that she is an enemy to all good.”
Her own husband had turned upon her.…That, along with the spectral evidence of the girls, was impossible to deny, no matter how long or often Goody Good denounced the charges.
One could not witness these things and not believe the Devil was among us. When Goody Good was dismissed and Sarah Osborne brought in, weak and frail, supported on Locker’s arm, I felt the air as a weight upon my shoulders. I could not take my eyes from the girls’ fits when they were told to look upon her, and I saw Osborne’s fear in the midst of it. I heard her shaken tales of how a shadow man had come to her—“A thing like an Indian, all black, which did pinch my neck…I am more bewitched than a witch!”—and felt a terrible certainty.
But all this was as nothing when they brought in the slave woman.
The moment Tituba entered, the girls fell into fits. Nothing could quiet them, not even Hathorne’s direction that Tituba look away. He had to shout his questions over their screaming, over the chaos of those trying to comfort them. Tituba gripped the bar. Her dark eyes were large and frightened; one was blackened from a recent beating.
Hathorne yelled questions over and over again, and her voice grew fainter and fainter as she answered them, denials all. I did not doubt she was a witch, and I saw the same belief in my neighbors. How could I deny it given the evidence before us, writhing on the floor, crying out in pain? The questioning seemed to go on for hours, though it could not have been that. The din was impossible; my ears hurt straining to hear; my soul felt bombarded by the girls’ sufferings.
Hathorne shouted, “Tell the truth. Who is it that hurts them?”
Tituba shook her head and swallowed nervously. “The Devil, for aught I know.”
“How does he appear when he hurts them? With what shape?”
Abigail Williams cried out, “Why do you pinch me so, Tituba? Goody Good, why do you torment me?”
“With what appearance does he come?” Hathorne asked again. “When did he appear?”
Tituba seemed to sag. In a voice nearly too quiet to hear, she said, “Like a man. I think yesterday.”
Hathorne went still. Someone asked, “What did she say?” and the whisper went around; the crowd went quiet. Miraculously, the fits stopped. The girls sagged, exhausted, l
istening.
My hands tightened on my gun—though why or how I should use it, I could not fathom.
Then ’twas as if the truth raced from Tituba, words so horrible ’twas hard to listen to them without terror. Sarah Good told her to hurt the children, and she was forced to do it. Good and the others were so strong that they had forced Tituba to go to the Putnams’ with them; they had ridden on a long pole through the air. They had forced her to attack young Annie with a knife—to which the child wrung her loose white hair and called out, “’Tis true, ’tis true! She tried to cut off my head!” Good prevented Tituba from listening to her master’s prayers. The witch had a yellow bird that sucked between her fingers, and a hairy creature like a dog or a wolf that did her bidding.
“Who else was there?” Hathorne asked. “Did you see Goody Osborne?”
“Aye,” Tituba said. “There be a man too. And…others. There be others.”
There was an audible gasp. Hathorne looked stunned.
“Others?” he asked. “There are others? How many?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“Many? A few?”
“I…”
“More than three?”
Tituba swallowed. “Aye. More than three.”
There was a terrified hush. Others. There were others.
The slave could not answer beyond that, though Hathorne was relentless. After another hour, we knew nothing more—not who those other witches were, nor how many. Finally the magistrate seemed to run out of questions.
Tituba stood nervously, her hands gripping her skirt, wrists bound by heavy iron manacles made for a man, so large they slipped to the base of her hands. Her head was bowed, and she seemed exhausted. I was as anguished as the others in the room as Hathorne called a halt to the proceedings.
“We shall take up again tomorrow,” he said to Tituba. “For now, you will go with the constable.”
George Locker and his men came up beside her, and I saw how they were reluctant to touch her, how they prodded her to move with their flintlocks rather than their hands. The crowd was still as they left, but the moment they went out the door, the meetinghouse burst into sound: arguments, fearful words, loud whispers. I glanced at Sam, who looked pale and stunned, and I knew I must look the same.