by Megan Chance
“My God, Lucas,” I said, “I’m begging you.…Have you not said enough already?”
“Is that your testimony?” John Hathorne asked. “That she possessed you? That she led you into sin?”
Lucas shook his head. “I tried to lay the blame at her door. Believe me, I tried. But the truth is that Susannah did not lead me. I have been…obsessed by her, and I wanted to believe that obsession was not of my own making. I wanted to attribute it to the Devil, because I could not bear the thought that I could fall into such sin without Satan leading me there. I could not bear the thought that I could…want…so desperately. Susannah is my wife’s sister. What is between us is a sin, and I know this. But ’tis not bewitchment. I have been deluded, as I believe my daughter has been as well. I wish to withdraw my testimony.”
There was stunned silence, mine no less than the others’.
Then John Hathorne asked quietly, “Have you fornicated with this woman, Goodman Fowler?”
Lucas met Hathorne’s gaze steadily. “Aye.”
Samuel Parris said, “God forgive you, Lucas.” Then they all began to talk over each other in horrified voices.
Tom Putnam stepped forward, his eyes wide in his pale face. “This cannot be true. You are led by your cock, Lucas. Admit at least that the only reason you recant this now is because you want her still.”
Lucas laughed. “Aye, I want her still. Is there a man among you who does not?”
“She has deluded you.”
“No. I was deluded before. Now my mind is my own.”
“How can you recant this testimony, when so many are clearly afflicted?” Hathorne asked.
“There may be witches,” Lucas said stubbornly. “Susannah is not one of them. I’d lay my life on it.”
“Your own daughter is one of the afflicted,” Tom insisted.
“She is misguided.”
“How can you know this?” Samuel Parris asked. “How can you say there is another judgment when ’tis clear the girls are tormented by your sister’s specter? They have called out her name. They have seen her. How do you explain this?”
“I cannot explain the others. Charity was close to her mother. She has been troubled since Judith died. I have not been…vigilant, and she has taken solace in delusion. ’Tis because of me she is so sorely afflicted.”
“Because of you?” Hathorne burst out. “You are the cause of the child’s fits?”
“Had I been more attentive, I believe she would not be one of the afflicted.”
Corwin frowned. “Has this woman put a spell on you to make you say these things?”
“No. There is no spell. I come here of my own free will—”
“Your own daughter calls out upon this woman. How can it be that she is so afflicted, and you, who live in the same house, who has…fornicated…with this…this witch, is not so tormented?”
“I have explained it already. Her mother’s death—”
“—has left her feeble-minded. Aye. But perhaps ’tis something else. You have said that you refused to acknowledge the truth of your feelings for this woman. Can it be that you are denying the truth of her role as Satan’s minion as well?”
“These are lies,” Lucas said impatiently. He turned to Danforth. “These are lies, sir. Susannah Morrow is no witch. I believe my daughter will admit the same when she is removed from the others.”
“Are you claiming that the others lie?” Corwin asked.
Lucas shook his head. “I hardly know them. I have no way to judge.”
“But you say your daughter will recant her testimony.”
“Aye. I think she will.”
Putnam asked, “Have you spoken with her, Lucas?”
“The last time I saw her, she told me of visions,” he said, and I knew with dismay what he spoke of, the visit of her mother’s spirit, the charge that I was a murderess. Charity had said nothing of recantation. She was worse than ever. Lucas spoke now from hope and determination, nothing more. ’Twas what he wished to be true, not what was.
Danforth was quiet for a moment, thoughtful, and I saw how the others deferred to him, and I grew cold.
“Where are the afflicted girls?” Danforth asked into the silence.
“Some stay in the ordinary here,” Corwin replied. “Some in the village. There was scheduled to be an examination today, but there has been a delay. They have not all returned home.”
“Where is your daughter, Goodman Fowler? Is she in the village or here?”
“I don’t know,” Lucas said, and I saw how it pained him to admit it. “She has not lived with me since her fits began.”
Charity had not even been with him; she had been trapped with those girls, gathering power in delusion day after day.
When Danforth told the constable who stood behind me, “See if the Fowler girl is one of those at the ordinary. If she is, bring her back here,” I knew what would happen. When I looked at Lucas, I saw with dismay that he knew it too.
Putnam turned slyly to Lucas. “Unless Lucas prefers she not come.”
Lucas gave him a sharp look, but he said, “Bring her. She is sixteen now, no longer a child, and I have hidden too many things from her. I would not hide this.”
The constable left. When the door had shut behind him, Hathorne said to Danforth, “What do you expect from this?”
“Why, corroboration,” Danforth said with a small smile. “Proof that Goodman Fowler has not himself been bewitched into saying lies.”
Lucas made a short, angry sound, and turned away, and Parris, who stood behind him, stepped back and murmured a small prayer. Lucas said bitterly, “The time for prayers is long past, Pastor,” and Parris looked at the floor and grew quiet.
“I would ask for one thing,” Lucas said. “I have not spoken to my daughter since I came to see the truth. She cannot yet know how I feel. I would ask that I be given a chance to talk to her alone.”
“I cannot give you that,” Danforth said. “You have said she will recant; I must be assured she does so of her own free will, without influence.”
“She is influenced every day by those girls.”
Danforth raised a brow. “But you are her father. You have directed her every day of her life. Surely she will know already how much faith to lend to your words.”
The room was silent as we waited for Charity to be brought in.
At the knock on the door, Lucas jerked from the window; Putnam and Parris went still; Hathorne looked up from the record book. Danforth rose slowly from the bench and said, “Bring her in.”
The door opened. I was sitting behind it, so ’twas impossible for Charity to see me at first, and I caught a glimpse of her as the constable brought her in. She looked far worse than when I’d seen her last; she was horribly thin, the knobby bones of her wrists and her shoulders stood out; her jaw and her cheekbones looked strangely sharp. The chilblains at her face were gone, but what remained was a reddish rash that she scratched at. Her skin was waxy pale, her hair lusterless. Yet what was the same was the way she stiffened at the sight of her father, the yearning for him that seemed to stretch her very skin, the way she leaned in his direction as if she waited hopelessly for a touch that never came.
Oh, see that, Lucas, I prayed wordlessly. Hold her.
Perhaps he would have. I had thought he would. But then Hathorne rose from the desk and distracted Charity’s attention, and when she turned, she saw me sitting there. The blood left her face; her eyes went wild. She pointed a shaking finger at me, and screamed, “Oh, there she is! There is the murderess! Where are the bodies you have buried, Susannah Morrow? How they cry for you!”
She stumbled back; she would have fallen had not the constable been there to catch her. But she struggled so in his arms that Locker had no choice but to lay her down upon the floor.
The other men stood back. Lucas ran to her. “Charity,” he said, kneeling beside her, trying to pull her into his arms—’twas a scene so like the first time, when I’d stood naked beside him.
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“Charity,” Lucas whispered to her, holding her wrists away from his face so she could not claw him. He was intent; the desperate love in his face was painful to see—he was a man wrestling for possession of his daughter’s soul, and losing. “Listen to me. Listen to me. You must stop this now. Stop it! There is no Devil in this room!”
Charity’s gaze went past her father. “There is a man in a winding sheet! He says she stabbed him! Oh, how white he is! ‘Murderer!’ he calls her. ‘Murderer!’”
Lucas gave her a little shake. “This is not true, Charity. I have already told these men that Susannah is no witch. I have told them the truth of things.”
She was trembling now, gooseflesh rising on her skin. “She has bewitched you. The Devil has you! I see Satan speaking in your ear!”
“’Tis nonsense,” Lucas said.
“She has swallowed you! I knew it! I saw it! She has swallowed your soul! Oh, Father, how can it be so? How can you have let her in?”
“No, Charity—”
“Oh, here she comes! Keep her away from me!” She jerked from him, putting up her hands to ward off an invisible attacker.
“She sits there on the chair,” he said. “Charity, this is delusion—”
“I have seen enough,” Danforth said, coming forward. He grabbed Lucas’s arm. “Release her.”
“I will not!” Lucas wrenched from the deputy governor’s grasp. “Charity, listen to me. If you would listen to me, you would see the truth.”
Danforth gave a nod. Tom Putnam and John Hathorne rushed forward to grab Lucas’s arms. He tried to shake them off, to cling to his daughter. Desperately he said, “Charity, ’tis your father. My God. My God, I love you. Do not do this—”
She leaned over and vomited. ’Twas bile only, but shining within it were two pins.
Tom Putnam released his hold on Lucas. “Oh, dear God, look at this!”
Lucas escaped them. He grasped Charity hard, pulling her to his chest. She was stiff and unwilling, but he held her tight, caressing her hair. “Believe me, Charity. Believe me. Susannah is no witch. How could I love a witch?”
Love. The echo of it cracked in the room. Charity twisted from Lucas’s arms with forcible strength at the same moment that Tom Putnam and John Hathorne finally pulled him loose. Lucas went stumbling back, held tightly by those men. Charity screamed. The pins in that little pool of yellow bile glinted.
I saw the way Danforth looked at Charity, that horrible, repulsed pity. Then he glanced up at Lucas, and I saw something else, something calculated. Suspicion and fear were dark in this room. I thought suddenly of John Proctor, who’d come to his wife’s examination an innocent man and left a prisoner.
“Let me touch her,” I said to Danforth. “Let me touch her.”
The deputy governor paused. He glanced at Hathorne, who nodded, before Danforth assented. I rose in a clattering of chains and went to my niece. I laid hands upon her the way I had been made to do at my examination.
She calmed, as I had known she would, as she had done before. When she settled, I pulled her to me as best I could with these wretched chains about my wrists. Like a baby, without will or protest, she came, and I knew what it looked like: as if I had bewitched her. I held her as I had dreamed of doing during the long sea voyage to Salem. I held her as if I were the mother she had lost, the mother I would never be. She went limp and fell asleep in my arms, staying there until I felt George Locker pulling me away, while Samuel Parris lifted Charity and took her from the room.
I looked up then, into Lucas’s face, and I saw a quiet faith there, a faith in me. I knew what he felt; I knew the power of it, how he’d fought it, and so this victory was the most precious gift I’d ever been given. He loved me enough to trust me against all reason, to make this sacrifice, to put his own life in peril to choose me.
I could yet do the same.
I turned to Thomas Danforth. “The things she’s said are true,” I told him quietly. “I have bewitched him.”
“No,” Lucas said forcefully. “Dear God, Susannah, do not do this.”
I ignored him. “I would like to confess. Who will hear it?”
“No! No!”
“Quiet him,” Danforth said, and I felt a moment of terror as he motioned to George Locker. The constable went immediately to help Tom Putnam and John Hathorne take Lucas from the room.
He struggled; they had to drag him to the door. Even then, he grabbed the door frame and looked back at me, and there was fury and dismay in his eyes. “I will not let you do this, Susannah.” Then they yanked him away, and the door shut behind them.
Chapter 35
I WAS ALONE WITH THOMAS DANFORTH AND JONATHAN CORWIN, and I was terrified. I had wanted only to save Lucas; I had not thought beyond that.
“You are confessing to being a witch?” Danforth asked.
I nodded. “Aye.”
Corwin said, “We must bring her before the bar. We should examine her as we have examined the others.”
Danforth nodded. “Get the afflicted girls, the Fowler girl as well.” He turned to me as Corwin left. “You understand what you are confessing to? You understand witchcraft is a capital offense?”
I tried to suppress my fear. “I understand.”
He looked at me thoughtfully, and then he took me into the courtroom, to the bar of justice, where I was made to stand and wait. It did not take long before the girls were brought from an ordinary nearby, along with a crowd of people anxious to see. I recognized Charity’s friends as they were brought in: Annie Putnam, Mary Walcott, and Elizabeth Hubbard were among them, along with two I did not recognize. And then, brought in last, though she had suffered the morning worse than any, was Charity.
She and the girls performed on cue—how cynical I was, that I expected such. Charity screamed louder than the others, though just a half hour before, she’d lain quietly in my arms. I wondered if she even remembered it. I wondered if she’d felt the peace we’d shared for just a few moments together.
Hathorne returned, along with Thomas Putnam and George Locker, who came quickly to stand beside me. I craned my neck for a view of Lucas, but I saw him nowhere.
“Susannah Morrow,” Danforth began, “you have today confessed to being a witch, have you not?”
The girls went eerily silent. The courtroom talk died immediately. I had the strangest thought—’twas as if I were on a stage, and the people gathered in the benches were not witnesses in the courtroom but a paying audience looking for a good entertainment. Geoffrey’s words came to me: You give them what they want, is all. They like exaggeration, my love. They want to be horrified; they want to laugh.…’Tis easy enough. Throw in a trick dog, and they’ll be in the palm of your hand.
I understood him then, as I had never quite before. ’Twas the first time since I’d come to Salem that I felt in control of anything. They were ready to hang on my every word, captivated already, bewitched. And suddenly I knew what I must do.
“How long have you been a witch?” Danforth asked me.
“A century,” I said.
Danforth looked surprised. “A century? How can that be, when you are barely above thirty years?”
“My spirit is very old.”
“You would have us believe that your spirit has lingered for seventy years beyond your age?”
“Evil is timeless, is it not?”
There was a gasp from the audience. Charity stared at me with unblinking eyes.
“What demon are you, that you can exist for so long?”
“No demon. Only a servant of the Devil, as you have all called me.”
Danforth looked smugly satisfied. “How often do you visit with the Devil? How does he come to you?”
“Nightly,” I said. “He comes as a man.”
There was furor in the front row. Mary Walcott had been knitting. Now she looked up and shouted out, “She is the mistress of the Devil!”
“Quiet, quiet!” Danforth held up his hand. He turned back to me. “And wha
t of Goodman Fowler? Did the Devil command you to bewitch him?”
“Aye.”
“How have you bewitched him? What spells have you used?”
I paused and looked out at those faces, those people who were enraptured by my words, by their worst fears made flesh, their most rampant curiosities. I understood then what they needed from me. Their horror went deeper than a simple obsession with the Devil. ’Twas a fear of God, of fate. They wanted explanations of why things happened, reasons they could understand and believe: If Indians attack your village and kill your mothers and fathers, ’tis the Devil who has led them here, because you have done something wrong. If little John dies of a strange fever, ’tis because I have looked at him as I passed, and not because of a curative failure. What blame there was in this blameless world they wanted mounted. They wanted assurances: Prayers work; I am one of God’s chosen; my destiny is not Hell, but Heaven.…
Yet I had spent these last eighteen years in London, and I knew…nothing was assured, and prayers were only prayers, and I knew in that moment that I would be hanged for my inability to give them relief, to provide them with solace.
Danforth said again, “What spells did you use to bewitch your sister’s husband?”
I stared at him, and then I laughed. “With my hands,” I said, and when he turned red, I laughed again. I saw Mary Walcott sitting there, knitting away, and said, “With a red bodice and a will to have him, with my hands and my mouth—aye, I bewitched him. I took him against his will as often as I could.”
Mary stopped her knitting and looked up. “The black man is whispering in her ear even now. Look at him there!”
Charity hugged herself hard. She was shaking uncontrollably.
“Have you seen this woman with a black man before today?” Danforth asked Mary Walcott.
“At her examination,” she said. “He whispered often in her ear.”
“He stood beside a white man,” Charity offered.
Danforth went still. “A white man?”