by Megan Chance
In the darkness, I could see nothing of her expression. But I felt her goodwill, and though I hurt at the thought of leaving her, I did not think of staying, nor of urging her to come with me. “Thank you,” I said.
“Send a letter to me in care of Parson Gibbs. ’Twill be safe with him. I would know where my sister is. I do not want to lose you.”
“Judith, I—”
“You must go. Godspeed,” she whispered, and as I gave her a quick embrace and turned to go, she said with soft bitterness, “Tell William…it should have been me.”
’Twas what Judith did best, aiding me with kindness and sacrifice, and then, when I was lulled and vulnerable, stabbing me with her anger so that I should feel guilt for it forever. I had bought my life with her sacrifice, and she had never let me forget it. But she was my sister, and I loved her, and I’d always known she loved me.
Yet we had spent more time apart than together. Her letters came irregularly, one or two now and then, or a sudden bundle of them delivered to me by a sailor or a merchant who’d had them from a trading vessel. I’d envied her life. She had a husband, children, a new life, while all I had was a set of cluttered rooms and a faithless lover. When I finally left Geoffrey for Robert, I wrote her that I’d found the man I’d been waiting for, but the truth was that Robert had a grown son and wanted no other children, not even with the woman he said he loved, and it was not long before I found myself yearning again for Judith’s life.
When she finally began to write of trouble, I knew it must be bad, because she could no longer contain it. Robert had died only a month before. I was free to go to her now, to help her—or so I told myself. Perhaps it was only that I’d hoped that Judith’s family could fill the void I felt.
And it had. When Judith died, part of me went with her. But I was grateful, too, for the opportunity fate had given me. Once again, my sister’s sacrifice had bought me a life. But I had been clumsy. I had trampled in where tenderness was required, and now, what had I but a niece who believed I was evil, and a lover who had made himself my enemy?
What can you know of love? ’Twas the question Lucas had asked me, and I knew it was a fair one, because in the years I’d been away from Lancashire, though I had never lacked for a lover, I had never truly been in love. I had wanted to be, but I chose badly each time, and my hope that someday I would find what I had been searching for dwindled with every year.
Did I believe what I’d told Lucas, that ’twas as if God had given us a gift—or was it merely that I’d been in the first flush of promise, when I believed that at last I had found what I yearned for?
I had no answers, and the questions swirled in the dank, stale air around me so that I thought I would go mad.
’Twas more than a week, or so Jem told me, before I realized why I’d been forsaken. It seemed Salem Village was concerned with its other witches, which multiplied like flies at a rotting carcass. Now they were brought into this dimness one by one—and with their coming, my own torments eased. I was left alone finally as the keeps and the surgeon turned to the other prisoners. I could sleep at last, and ’twas only then I found my madness abating, hour by hour, borne away by company and rest. I found my spirit returning, and with it a will to survive, a faith that soon, some honorable, rational person would call an end to this. But as I saw the hopelessness in the other prisoners, I began to wonder if there could be such a person in Salem.
Martha Corey came first, disoriented and angry, barely speaking to me as she bore the humiliations I’d borne alone. After her came a little girl—four-year-old Dorcas Good, whose mother had been removed to the Boston Jail. The child had confessed to being a witch. When she was given into our care, she cried and screamed curses, but after several hours of such terror, she climbed willingly into my arms to sleep, her chains clanking against mine. In her quietness, she reminded me of Jude, and the thought of that little girl made me keep little Dorcas close.
Then came elderly Rebecca Nurse—a woman whose hospitality I’d enjoyed during the Indian scare—and ’twas then I realized that the world had gone mad.
Perhaps because she was so elderly and so obviously frail, they did not chain her to the wall. They put her into the dungeon, and she stumbled in the darkness, obviously confused and bewildered.
“Rebecca,” I managed finally. “How come you here?”
She stumbled to the pallet beside me, and put her head in her hands. “Susannah, ’tis a terrible thing. A terrible thing indeed.”
“Who would call you a witch?” I asked her.
She frowned, and touched her finger to her ear, and I remembered she was going deaf. I said again, louder, “I cannot imagine why you are here.”
“Those girls.” Her voice softened to a whisper. “Those girls. And Ann Putnam too, now. She said I appeared to her in her fits.”
“The child is—”
“Not the child,” Rebecca said, shaking her head sadly. “The mother. ’Tis no love lost between Francis and Tom Putnam. I have told Francis not to argue with them. ’Tis too much power for a single family.”
In the corner, Martha Corey had been sleeping, and now she woke. She stared in surprise at Rebecca. “You? They have accused you now? What wretched turn is this? Have they all gone mad?”
Rebecca seemed to sag. “I have wondered,” she murmured, “what unrepented sin God has found in me that He should lay such an affliction upon me now, in my old age.”
“Do not torment yourself,” I said. “You have led a godly life.”
She closed her eyes. “We must pray to God that we will be saved from this.”
We spoke little more. The four of us sat as statues. When the cell door opened again, Rebecca started and rose, stumbling to it as if she expected there had been a pardon, a mistake.
I was surprised to see a man following Jem into the cell. He held a shadowed bundle. When Jem raised the lantern, I saw ’twas Sam Nurse, Rebecca’s son, Lucas’s friend.
I watched Rebecca’s shoulders shake with tears as her son came toward her. Sam’s arms were full of blankets and a heavy cape. They fell to the floor as Rebecca went to him. He held his mother like a babe, stroking her back, murmuring into her ear. When he looked up and saw me there, sitting in the shadows, I knew that this was not the same man who had turned away from me as I walked the aisle to my examination. This was a man railing at circumstance, a furious man. A man rallying to fight.
“Susannah,” he said tightly, “forgive me for disbelieving you. ’Tis a…confusing time. Look at this! When my own poor mother can be accused of such a thing, a woman who was ever a lamb of God—”
“Aye. ’Tis unthinkable.”
His expression was sad when he looked at me. “Jude talks of you,” he said quietly. “’Tis clear the child mourns your absence.”
“I miss her as well.” I did not ask the question I longed to ask.
Sam must have known it. I had never thought him entirely unaware of what existed between Lucas and me. Now he said, “He is confused, Susannah. ’Tis his own daughter who is afflicted.”
“I know,” I said.
“What would you have him do? Denounce her?”
I did not answer that question. “Do you think the girls are bewitched?”
“They are…too biddable, some of them. I do not know what to think.”
“I would not have Lucas do what he cannot. He loves his daughter. I think…I have no doubt Charity believes the things she says are true.”
Sam hesitated. When he spoke, there was reluctance in his voice. “Are they true?”
“I have said before. I am no witch.”
Samuel looked uncomfortable. “Why does she accuse you? Her own aunt?”
“Charity lost her mother the night I arrived. We have been at odds since.”
He nodded thoughtfully, but said nothing more to me. I listened with half an ear as he described to Rebecca what we should expect now: There would be a trial, but he did not know when. Increase Mather was not returned to N
ew England from London with the new charter; as yet, the Massachusetts General Council had no authority to act. Until the new governor arrived, we would wait here in prison.
Sam stayed but a little longer. He left reluctantly, and when he was gone, Rebecca took the blankets and cape and clean linen he’d brought her. She came to where I sat on the bed.
“We will not be here long,” she said to me, the fervor of a prayer in her voice. “God will redeem us. God will set us free.”
Such fortitude she had, such faith. I wished for just a little myself, but my God had left me long, long ago, on a day when I’d borne my father’s first beating without flinching; in truth, I did not miss Him.
This time, when I heard the footsteps coming down into the dungeon, I thought nothing of it. I did not even look up until Jem said, “Here’s one to see you, lady fair,” and I glanced up to see Lucas standing at the door.
I stood, and the chains at my wrists clanked unbearably and rattled against the wall. I saw Lucas’s gaze go to them. He was pale and thin; his face was hollowed and bruised from what looked to be exhaustion.
I said quietly, “Where have you been?”
He turned to Jem. “Take her out of the chains.”
Jem shook his head. “Them girls—”
“My daughter is one of the girls. I say take her out.”
The jailkeep hesitated. Then he came across the cell to me, unlocking the chain from the ring in the wall.
“Take them off her,” Lucas said.
“I can’t.”
“Who would know? Ten minutes is all I ask.”
Jem glanced at me, then at Lucas, and then he unlocked the manacles so they clanked on the floor. I had grown used to moving at the end of the chain, to measuring my movements. When the chains fell, I did not move, unable to lose the habit of constraint.
Lucas stood at the cell door, looking oddly lost. “Sam told me he’d seen you.”
“Aye. When they brought his mother in.” I sounded bitter. I saw Lucas wince and glance to the corner, where Rebecca stood.
“Do you need something?” he asked. “Blankets?”
“Aye. Blankets. And some clothing, if you would. It gets mightily cold here.”
He nodded. His glance took in the cell, and I knew what he saw and saw too his horror in it. “This is not…what I expected.”
“What did you expect? A gabled house? A fireplace? A servant? Try Judge Corwin’s. I was questioned there late into the night once. I would rather this.”
“Susannah—”
“Why have you come, Lucas?”
He came toward me quickly. When he was only a foot from me, it seemed he suddenly remembered where we were, who he was, and he stopped. “I cannot stop thinking of you. I cannot stand to see you this way.”
“How did you think I would be?” I asked. I touched my hair. It fell lank around my shoulders, tangled with bits of straw. I knew I’d lost weight by the fit of my clothes; my stomach growled all the day through; I was thirsty constantly. “Why are you here, Lucas, when you have not come for so long? Why did you not warn me you would testify against me?”
“I cannot tell you that.”
“Do I not deserve an honest answer?”
“I cannot tell you, because I don’t know. My God, the world is in chaos. ’Tis nothing but fear everywhere, and suspicion.…I should have done as you asked. I should have sent Charity away, even when…Parris sent little Betsey to town. I have heard that already her fits have eased.”
“Can you not do the same?” I asked him. “Surely ’tis not too late—”
“It is too late. Charity has grown worse, but I cannot tell.…Susannah, if witches are here in the village, if the Devil has truly come, I cannot take her from the authorities who need her.”
“There are others to do that work.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “She and some of the others called out on Elizabeth Proctor.” The others in the cell gasped, and Lucas nodded his confirmation. “Aye. ’Tis true. And Rebecca—there is talk that your sister Sarah will be accused as well.”
“You cannot mean it!”
“She walked out of Parris’s sermon on Sunday. She took offense to his text. ’Twas from John: ’Have I not chosen you twelve and one of you is a devil?’ So soon after your arrest, Rebecca, Sarah could not stand it. But she called attention to herself, and in these times, that cannot be good. I think there will be others accused as well. The girls are talking of a wizard now, a man who rules the witches—”
“Lucas,” I said, “you must leave this place.”
“They do not talk of me,” he said impatiently. “Charity says so many things, and I…What shall I do? She is my daughter. How can I not believe her? I know her too well to think she lies.”
“Why have you come then?” I asked. “What do you want of me?”
He laughed bitterly, then sagged onto my pallet, burying his face in his hands. “What do I want of you? What don’t I want?”
I sat beside him on the pallet. “You know I did not do the things they accuse me of. Your dream was only a dream. My only sin was in not understanding well enough Charity’s grief, or her guilt—”
He held up his hand to quiet me. His voice was rough when he said, “Why can you not confess?”
“Because I’m innocent,” I cried. “You know this, Lucas. You must know it. ’Tis yourself you seek to save, not me. This absolution you want—’tis for your own soul.”
He lurched to his feet then, hastening from me, and when he was gone, I closed my eyes and leaned back against the damp stone wall while the darkness of my future rose up once again.
Chapter 33
A FEW DAYS LATER, JEM CALLED THAT I HAD ANOTHER VISITOR. I hoped it might be Lucas again, to bring me the blankets or clothes that I’d asked for. But then I saw ’twas Hannah Penney. Hannah, bearing a bag on her back and little Faith in her arms.
Jem had not put the manacles on me again after Lucas’s visit, and for the last days, I’d hidden in the shadows, not moving farther than the limits of my chains to keep Jem from remembering that I did not wear them. But when I saw Faith, I forgot myself; I went running to Hannah.
“You’ve brought her,” I said, reaching out for the babe. Hannah put the child in my arms, and in sudden realization I looked up to meet Jem’s gaze, certain that he would chain me up again. I could not bear it, that I would have to relinquish little Faith in order to be manacled. The child was even now cooing at me, reaching for my loosened hair.
But Jem simply turned away, disappearing out the door.
“What is it?” Hannah asked. “What do you look at?”
“Nothing. ’Tis nothing.” I smiled at her. “Hannah, I am so glad you’ve come. And to bring Faith…”
“She is more yours than mine,” Hannah said, but she did not smile back at me. She reached for the bag slung over her back. “I’ve brought clothes. Lucas said you’d asked for some, and he did not know what to choose. I…went through your trunks.”
“Leave them here,” I said, leading her to my bed, where we both sat on the stinking straw. I played with Faith’s fat little fingers. “How are things in the village?”
“Oh, ’tis terrible. Terrible.” Hannah glanced to where Rebecca lay curled and sleeping, and then she said in a low voice, “They arrested Sarah Cloyce this morning, and Elizabeth Proctor too. It has gained a force now that even the government cannot deny. Today I heard that the exams are being moved to town so Deputy Governor Danforth can attend.”
I bent close to Faith and breathed deep her scent. “Perhaps ’tis a good thing. This needs clearer heads.”
“Aye.” Hannah’s tone was hesitant. I looked up to see her watching me closely, as if she expected at any moment that I might sprout wings and fly away.
“What is it, Hannah?” I asked.
She looked down at her hands, which she twisted in her lap. “I came here today to talk to you. I thought perhaps…We have been friends, have we not?”
“Aye.”
“There have been things…I cannot explain them.”
“I don’t understand you.”
She looked up at me. “I have not testified against you, Susannah, and I will not. There is already enough evidence, enough that the magistrates have bound you over—”
Suddenly I felt sick. “Hannah—”
“You have spent too many years in worldly pursuits; ’tis clear the Devil has had traffic with you. Who else but a demon could quiet a child so easily?”
I tightened my hold on Faith. “She likes to hear singing. ’Tis all it was.”
“I put bay across the doorstop—do you not recall the day you would not come into the house, but bade me bring Faith out to you?”
I did remember it. ’Twas months before, when I’d traipsed over the field to the Penneys’ to bring the clothes Judith had sewn for Faith. Clouts and belly bands and pilches, shapeless linen gowns drawn by bobbins, warmly wadded biggins—all so tenderly sewn it had nearly broken my heart to see them, to see the evidence of Judith’s hopes.…
“There was mud on my boots,” I said. “I had crossed the stream and slipped on the bank. Do you remember? The basket I carried the clothes in was streaked with mud. You were sweeping the house, and I…I did not want to track the dirt inside.…”
She shook her head sorrowfully, as if she recognized the lie and pitied my need to tell it. “You could not cross the bay—no witch can.”
“It was the mud—”
“Oh, Susannah.” Hannah leaned forward, her expression intent. “You have been found out already. The judges are learned men; they cannot be wrong. There is no cause to lie to me. I know you are a witch. I have suspected it for some time. I’ve come to beg you to confess. ’Tis time to cleanse your soul, to turn to God. Before you are hanged, you must absolve yourself.”