“I’ll be arranging my things,” Mistress Parris said softly, and as she made her way up the stairs, I caught a glimpse of Betty and Abigail peeking down from the darkness at the top; those girls were not known for their quiet, and the nervous tickle I felt spread like a wave through my whole body, causing the blood to thump loudly in my ears.
Not sure I would be able to stand much longer, I made my way to the bench and gripped the edges as tightly as I could.
The reverend was never one to mince his words and I knew the news would be delivered swiftly. “Violet, you know our town has weathered a stormy period and we are still finding our footing. You will be greatly relieved to hear that as part of that process your parents have been purchased and your mother is no longer in confinement.”
My heart just about beat out of my chest and I grinned ear to ear. It was no surprise to me that someone in town had seen what a hard worker Mama was and had paid her bail. I knew Papa was surely with her and I was ready to gather my things and join them; soon we’d all be sleeping under that North Star together as a family again.
“As you are a valuable worker in our home,” he continued, “we have chosen to keep you here with us. I am sure the news of your mother’s release is a blessing to you from God and your parents will be an asset to their new household.”
My hopes felt like they were torn from the bone and swallowed whole. “Who bought them?” I asked, trembling. “Where did they take them?”
The reverend shrugged carelessly. “A man traveling north. Your parents are good laborers and will no doubt earn their keep. As I said, it is a blessing and we should thank the Lord tonight in our prayers.”
My body turned to ice and spasms racked my body.
A blessing?
Mama and Papa were gone.
Sold.
And I was left behind.
I stumbled to the room we had shared and clung to the threshold. While I’d been in Gloucester caring for this family’s kin, my family had been wrenched from me and the room we shared cleared of their few belongings.
I flung myself on their bed. The pillows still carried the faint smell of Papa’s pipe and the lavender Mama used to keep the linens fresh during the long winter months. A painful wail poured from deep inside me as I pounded the bed.
“When you have composed yourself, you will need to get dinner started and the table set,” Reverend Parris called out from the main room.
And that was it.
No goodbyes.
No apologies.
No anything.
It was like Mama and Papa never were. It was like I should just move on and not feel their absence.
“Did you hear me, Violet? Mistress Parris needs you to get dinner started while she rests from the long trip.”
As I stared wildly about the small room in the gathering darkness, a black shadow filled me, as if I were pulling the night inside to fill the space where my scream had come. Tonight, there would be no quiet whispers from my father—no talk of the North Star.
I heard footsteps loudly coming my way. And then I felt Reverend Parris’s presence in the doorway. “Violet!”
I slowly turned his way. “I heard you,” I said, through gritted teeth, eyes narrowed on his hawkish face. “And I will be out in a minute.”
I rolled over and sat on the bed with my back to him, knees drawn tight to my chest. His steps, quieter now, retreated from the doorway. My tears dried, and anger welled up in all the places that used to hold hope.
I had wondered how my mother could make such terrible accusations against the people of Salem Village. I had wondered if they were true and, if not, how she could live with herself knowing how many people had died.
Now I finally understood.
We were never truly a part of this family. I had no sisters under this roof. Mama and Papa and I, we were simply hearth sweepers, chicken pluckers, cleaners of chamber pots—property.
But now I was also ready to take on the mantle of witch; and if the Devil had come to me then and there and asked me to sign his book, I would have done so in my very own blood.
Or that of Reverend Parris’s.
CHAPTER THREE
I took more than a minute, perhaps even ten, before I willed myself to rise from my parents’ bed. The Parris family could well wait for their supper or make it themselves.
My eyes were puffy—I had to view everything through mere slits—and no doubt the whites were red. I had seen Abigail’s eyes when she first arrived at the Parris house after her parents’ deaths. It was like the blood from her heart had leaked into her eyes. I imagined mine looked like that as well now.
Mama had welcomed Abigail when she walked through our door, though, wrapping her tiny frame tight in her long arms as she cried for her parents. Mama, in hushed tones, whispered and promised her it would be all right. She told Abigail she would be there for her any time of any day and all she had to do was call out for Mama Tituba.
And Mama was there for her, and for me and Betty as well.
And now it was my turn—now I was the orphan—only there was no one to wrap their long arms around me. Mistress Parris certainly never took on the role of mother after Mama was sent to jail.
Though I didn’t want to give the Parris family the satisfaction of seeing how wounded I was, I knew there was nothing to be done about it.
I had no magic to cast a spell that would take away the pain that was surely showing on my face, nor soothe my swollen eyes.
My heart raced, and anger and loss washed over me again until even the tips of my ears burned with heat.
Let them see me! Let them see the heartache I wear on my face, and every tear that falls down my cheeks.
I will look at each of them in their cold eyes and they will see what they have done.
New sobs racked my body. These people will surely come to see how wrong it is, and perhaps it will soften their hearts.
How could it not?
So many children in Salem and those up and down the coast were orphans from disease and attacks. So many parents wasted away in their beds for no reason the doctors could find. The land was unforgiving, but I was willing to forgive this family if they could find it in their hearts to see how wrong they were, to see the terrible injustice that had been done to me.
Who could be so unfeeling as to separate a child from their parents on purpose? Once they saw my face, they would know they had to fix this.
And perhaps I was misjudging Mistress Parris—she could have been as surprised as I. Perhaps she walked through the door thinking Papa was still here. Perhaps she will think about how her children would feel if they lost her.
Perhaps Abigail, who lost her own parents, will tell the reverend how wrong it was to sell my parents without me, and that I should be reunited with them at once.
Abigail owed that much to me after what she had done.
My face crumpled.
I knew I was dreaming to think that Abigail could actually find the nerve to speak on my behalf against the reverend.
She hadn’t spoken but commands to me since the accusations began.
Since Mama went to jail.
And Betty, she was far worse. As the days and months had passed, she grew more and more callous, more demanding. But perhaps Betty would remember that we had once been sisters and feel for me and insist her parents send me north.
I stoked the fire and put a salted pork loin in the pot. It would not be ready for our normal suppertime, and I frowned, thinking Betty and Abigail had surely been capable of having started it themselves, but they remained out of sight.
Everyone was out of sight. Usually the main room was where everyone gathered and sewed and cooked and, in the case of the reverend, wrote his sermons.
Tonight, I was alone.
I chopped some root vegetables and seasoned the pot and then turned to the table.
Mama always made sure the napkins were folded precisely, no spills of cider on the tablecloth. She did so much, and I
had wanted to do none of it, but tonight I knew I must. I had to be good and hope they saw just how good I was, and I hoped they changed their minds.
What else could I do to change their minds?
I looked around the room and started putting things back in place—yarn and needles in the basket, a shawl on its hook, boots lined straight against the wall.
I grabbed the broom and swept the ashes that had drifted out onto the floor.
What else?
I jumped when I heard steps on the stairs. Reverend Parris was making his way down followed by Betty and Abigail.
“Is dinner ready, Violet?” Betty asked casually, plopping down at her seat as if this were an ordinary evening. “’Tis quite late this evening, and I am famished.”
“It can be forgiven tonight,” the reverend said, “after all . . .”
My breath caught.
“You have had a long journey from Gloucester, but I will not be so generous tomorrow. Do you understand me?”
I stared at him, speechless, silently begging him to see what was right in front of him—could he not see how I ached? How could he ignore what he had done to me?
I turned to Betty, who sniffed and unfolded her napkin, her eyes turning impatiently toward the pot on the hearth.
“Abigail,” I said softly, hoping at least she might show me some compassion, but she sat next to Betty and rearranged the silverware without a glance to me.
Before I knew what was happening, the reverend charged at me and I shrank as he grabbed my wrist. “Have you lost your hearing? I asked you, do you understand, Violet?” he demanded as his fingers squeezed painfully.
“Yes,” I whispered, through clenched teeth.
“Excuse me?” he said, twisting my arm. “Perhaps now it is I who is hard of hearing.”
“Yes!” I spat. “I understand, all too well.”
He released me, and it was clear that he cared not that he’d sold my parents without even giving me a chance to say goodbye and it was clear I was not going anywhere, not if he had anything to do with it. I could never do enough odd jobs or scramble to earn enough coins to buy my freedom, and I would be stuck with this family forever—unless a miracle happened.
No.
Despite what the reverend preached, I no longer believed in miracles. If I were to find my parents, I could not depend on God to intervene—I would have to make my own miracle happen.
As I dished out the meat, I vowed then and there that I would rush through all my chores every day so I could go out into the woods and seek the tall man in the hat from Boston that Mama had spoken of while she was under interrogation. If he had come to her—sought her out in the middle of the night to make mischief for the Devil—surely, he would come to her daughter.
I had trembled along with the whole town when Mama spoke of that strange man who appeared to her in our room one night. She said it was that man who told her to hurt the children of Salem—who told her to hurt Betty and Abigail. He asked her to sign the book.
I had been chilled to my bones to think such a specter had not only been in our house but in the very room in which I slept. And when Mama said the man turned into a large, black dog and then a bristled, talking pig, and finally into an imp just three feet high with a too long nose and covered from head to toe in coarse, black hair—I shook like a winter wind had swept through the meetinghouse and taken home in my soul.
That man and that creature—be they one and same or two different things—they haunted my dreams for months, but today, thinking of them, I could only smile.
Today I would gladly seek their company, and I would shake the hand of the tall man and thank him for seeking me out.
When he comes to me—and I was sure he would—when he holds out that dark book full of names, he won’t even have to ask if I am ready to sign. I would grab the pencil out of his hands and make Betty Parris sorry she taught me how to read and write.
I would print my name in that book and strike out at the people in this house, because they are by far more terrifying than anything I might meet in the woods.
The tall man and the imp—I would welcome them any day instead of Reverend Parris.
CHAPTER FOUR
The next morning, I rose early with little appetite. I nibbled on bread that even honey could not sweeten. I was sure I had slept no more than an hour, as my mind had raced through the night, trying to figure out a way to find Mama and Papa, trying to find a way to make my miracle happen. As the moon traveled across the sky toward morning, I wondered if the tall man from Boston would indeed come to me.
A part of me thought he could just be a story Mama had told, because in the past year there had been no mention of witches or spells or strange men appearing at the foot of beds.
The man, as Mama had described, seemed so real at the time, so frightening. If he was real, though, why had no one talked of him these many months?
Maybe this tall man had simply tired of bedeviling the people of Salem and found another town in which to work the Devil’s mischief.
I poked at the coals in the hearth and tried to wrap my mind around a reason Mama would have lied. But the day Betty and Abigail were afflicted, that is a day I will never forget.
It was no lie that Abigail Williams had raced around this very room, screaming and barking and pointing wildly in the air, before she reached into this very hearth, grabbed red-hot coals with her bare hands, and tossed them at Reverend Parris.
I’d had to mend the small holes burned into the reverend’s clothes.
There were still scorch marks on the floor and scars on Abigail’s palms.
Surely, liars would not go as far as to reach into a fire. And surely, liars would not have kept up the pretense of fits and barking for week after week if they were not truly afflicted.
But maybe they would.
I thought of our house. We walked on eggshells trying to guess what to do to please the reverend and Mistress Parris. We all feared the switch, though, me more than any of the others.
But maybe liars would think it best to continue the pretense rather than confess and be beaten—or thrown in the stocks—or both, even if it meant people went to jail.
Even if it meant people died.
Could someone lie and not care if people died as a result of that lie?
I had asked Betty and Abigail this very question on the day I heard that Mama had taken her confession back. Governor Phips had ordered an end to the arrests. I thought that if Betty and Abigail might confess to lying, the reverend would pay to bring Mama home.
***
I still remembered what happened, as clear as day. It was a quiet evening: Papa was at Ingersoll’s Tavern working behind the counter, and Mistress Parris and the reverend were in town to argue that his contract wasn’t being satisfied and that we had barely enough wood to stay warm the past winter.
Abigail and Betty were at home and both sewing, and though they were still treating me coolly, I was sure they would confess to me. I was sure they wanted Mama home as much as I did.
“Betty—Abigail, might I have a moment of your time?” I felt foolish at the formalness of my approach, but things were different now. I had to tread cautiously, especially around Betty.
Betty raised her nose in the air and sniffed, a habit of her mother’s she had grown to use more and more. “You may have but a moment, Violet. We have to finish our stitches before Mother and Father come home.”
Abigail lowered her hoop and looked to Betty, who rolled her eyes at her cousin.
“You have likely heard my mother has recently recanted her confession. She said it was all lies beaten out of her from your father and—”
“Lies, indeed!” Betty snapped. “Your mother is telling lies now, maligning my family’s name all to get out of prison, despite what she did to us.”
Heat rose to my face. “Perhaps your father did not beat the confession out of her, but . . .”
Betty stood, her stitching hoop clutched with white knuckle
s. “Your mother and Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne met with the tall man. They flew on poles to Boston, they sent their selves after Abigail and me, and we almost died!”
“Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne did die,” I reminded her. “They did not confess. They told the court you were liars and they hung on Gallows Hill. So many hung on that hill.”
Betty’s cheeks flushed in anger while Abigail buried her face in her hands.
I ran to Betty and took the hoop gently from her hands and put it on the table. “Please, Betty. I will not judge you. I just want Mama home; I want things to be like they used to be. Remember how it used to be? We had fun and we laughed. I miss that. I miss you and Abigail. There has been no laughter since Mama was taken away. Your father might whip you with the switch, but would it not be worth it to have Mama Tituba home?”
“Betty,” Abigail cried.
Betty sneered. “Your mother confessed because she was guilty. Why would she otherwise? And think of all the other people who confessed!” Betty yelled. “So many people confessed because it was all true! It was true and your mother is guilty and I’m glad she’s gone so she cannot torment me again!”
She turned and stomped up the stairs to her room.
My breath hitched in my throat. “Abigail. Please say it wasn’t true. I miss my mama. I miss her so, so much. Sometimes I’m afraid, since I’ve grown, she won’t recognize me when I see her again.”
Abigail shook her head and then looked down at her scarred palms. “The Devil made me reach into the fire that night.”
“The Devil, but not Mama!” I insisted. “Please tell me it was not Mama!”
“Abigail!” Betty cried from the top of the stairs. “It is time for bed!”
Abigail stared past me. “The Devil, Mama Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne—they all came to me. They came to me and I put my hands in the fire to make them stop.” She slowly turned and made her way up the stairs one halting foot step at a time.
“Abigail!” I cried. “Tell me the truth!”
She looked over her shoulder at me. “Your mother is a witch and I have the scars to prove it.”
Only the Stars Know Her Name Page 2