A Break With Charity: A Story About the Salem Witch Trials (9 page)

"A number. All dead. Like her older sister's. Instead of thanking the Lord she has Ann, she's made the child into a miniature of herself. Taught that child to blame everyone else for their woes. I tell you, I'll have naught to do with those people."

It was one of the most passionate outbursts I'd ever heard from my mother. Why, she was red in the face when she was finished. I'd never seen her that agitated, even when she spoke of William.

"Besides," she said, "I don't want you afflicted."

"But you and Father don't hold with witchcraft," I reminded her. "Being afflicted by witches isn't catching. Is it, Mama?"

She smiled at me. "Very well, I'll ask your father when we sup tonight. We'll see what he says."

"What do I say?" Father spooned his soup into his mouth and cut a generous slice of cheese for himself. "I think, daughter, that I hate the very suggestion of witchcraft. I see it as the Puritan mind at its worst."

He paused to spoon in more soup. "Four years ago they hung that poor Goody Glover on Boston Common. She was no more a witch than I am. Her only fault was she was a poor Irish washerwoman."

He eyed me across the table. Mary and I sat open-mouthed. "The Reverend Parris was living in Boston with his family at the time. He attended the hanging. Took the little girls to see it. No wonder those poor children are now daft. Go, child; take your apple tarts and your smiling face, and go visit Ann Putnam. But with one request."

I waited.

"Wait until the ministers pray over the girls. Let the holy men do their praying, lest they think I sent you to interfere with their fight against the Devil. And say nothing to Ann Putnam about witchcraft. Be your own happy self. Perhaps you can help her as you helped Abigail Hobbs."

And so I went. And became part of the madness that had come to Salem. I went, but I never told my parents what it was that I discovered.

MERCY LEWIS
, maidservant to the Putnams, let me in to their main hall and took my cloak while Ann Putnam and her mother stood by.

Mercy said nothing by way of greeting, though I felt her eyes upon me and saw her exchange sly glances with young Ann. Mrs. Putnam was a forbidding-looking woman, tall and big of bone with a sallow face. For a few very uncomfortable minutes, I sensed they all knew why I had come. They must have discussed me at length after my last meeting with Ann, when she told me not to come back to the parsonage.

"Let's take your lovely apple tarts and go into the company room," young Ann said sweetly. "Mercy, do bring us some hot cider. Mama, Susanna English and I have much in the way of young girls' talk to occupy us. We would like our privacy."

Why did this make me feel that the girl's mother consented only because she trusted Ann to deal with me as I deserved? I don't know. But there was some undercurrent of understanding between this mother and daughter that had more to do with evil than with love. I was sensible of that immediately. It was as if these two moved together through dark and swirling waters toward some whirlpool they could not avoid. And would not think of avoiding.

In the company room, before the fire, Ann startled me with her forthrightness. As soon as the door closed, all traces of sweetness left. She did not even bid me to sit, but stood before me, fists clenched as she spoke.

"I was expecting you. If you have come to make trouble, be aware you are uncovering a hornets' nest. You will be sorry."

"What trouble could I make for you, Ann?" I tried to remain calm, but I was frightened. I was not welcome. Something unpleasant was about to happen between us, yet I did not know the nature of it.

"I know exactly what I have gotten myself into," she said. "But you do not. So be warned. If you came to probe for my secrets, you may not be happy with what you learn here this day."

"Ann, I came to appeal to you."

"For what? I suppose you wish to cast your lot in with us more, now that we have so much attention."

"I wanted to join your circle before, Ann. But I no longer harbor such a wish. I came to ask you to speak out before it is too late."

"Speak out about what?" she inquired innocently.

"Ann, please let there be no deceit between us," I begged. "I wish you no harm. Nor any of the other girls in the circle. But the doctor's verdict about the evil hand being on Abigail Williams and little Betty Parris is not true. We both know such. Someone must speak out now, before the matter is out of hand."

Her fists unclenched, and she turned away from me. "It is already out of hand," she said.

I moved quickly to stand before her. "What mean you by that?"

She laughed. It was a cruel and heartless laugh. "The ministers prayed over us. You should have seen them. They hovered over us like old crows. We couldn't look each other in the eyes for fear of giggling. Of course, that Reverend Noyes from Salem Town is young and a bachelor and rather dashing. I thought I would swoon when he put his hands on me."

I was, indeed, taken aback by this. And I could not keep my feelings from showing in my face. "Ann, the laying on of hands is holy!"

Again, she laughed. "You wouldn't think such, from the gleam in his eye."

"Ann, you're only twelve," I said.

"But far from a child. Or so people will soon find out."

Her manner conveyed a threat.

"Ann, what mean you by that?"

She started swaying in a little skipping dance around the room. She picked up her skirts and held them out gracefully. She closed her eyes and hummed a tune. When at last she answered, a cold chill went through me.

"The ministers wish us to name our tormentors."

I gasped. "Ann! You cannot do that! There are no tormentors!"

She continued her dancing moves, smiling at me. "We must do it. They want us to name people. This whole town wants it." She stopped dancing and considered me solemnly. "There is so much evil in this town." She sighed. "All my life I have heard of it from my mother. No one knows what she and her sister endured here. And we are plagued by so many other troubles. The elders are looking for someone to blame. We will give them many someones."

"You will give forth the names of people as witches? When you know you girls are not really afflicted?"

"We will, and the elders will be glad to know that the cause of the bickering and trouble in this place lies not at their own feet but is the fault of witches living amongst us."

I understood now. "Is that why you joined the circle?" I asked. "To use it to avenge your mother's enemies?"

She became angry. Her face twisted into bitter lines. "Yes, my mother sent me! Because she has disturbing dreams of her dead sister and her children. They stretch their hands out to her and implore her for help. My mother doesn't know what they want from her. She sent me to Tituba to contact her dead sister."

"I am sorry for your mother's sorrows," I said. "Did Tituba help her?"

"She was about to. She was in a trance one day, when little Betty Parris got frightened.... The child is a dafter. She ruined everything. I warned her about those fits. She wanted to go to her father and tell him what we were about. I told her that if she exposed our sport, her father would have her whipped in public and sent out to live with another family."

So that was it! No surprise, then, that little Betty was so terrified. "Her father would never do that," I said.

"I needed to keep her quiet."

"And so she became more terrified."

"She became uncontrollable."

I was utterly taken aback by this young girl's lack of heart. Indeed, she had no heart. "And that was when her father called the doctor?"

"She needed a whipping, not a doctor. But then something else happened. The reverend and his wife started to coddle Betty. Abigail got jealous of the attention lavished on her cousin and got the fits, too."

"So then the rest of you claimed the same affliction," I said dully, still not believing what I was hearing.

"We had to. Don't you understand? Why let Betty and Abigail have all the sport? They were the center of attention. The other girls and I discussed it. We decided this was our chance to take part in something very wondrous."

"Wondrous?" I could not abide what I was hearing.

"Yes! It was our chance to break out of the chains they bind us with in this dreary place. But also, we couldn't abandon Abigail and Betty. They didn't have the sense to carry this matter through and not be discovered. They needed our advice. So we met with them and told them that they must outwit the elders or we would all be terribly punished. We swore fidelity to one another."

"And will keep that fidelity?"

"There is no going back now. The die is cast. We are bound together, and we will stay together and give succor to each other until the end."

Until the end.
The words sounded so dreadful. "So you will continue to deceive, then, though innocent people be named as your tormentors."

"Don't trouble your head about it, Susanna English. There are people in this town who are far from innocent, who deserve whatever befalls them."

"And you consider yourself capable of judging who those people might be?"

She faced me, unflinching. She raised her pointed chin. Her eyes glittered. "I am familiar with the history of Salem. I know who the troublemakers are."

"You mean your mother will tell you. And they will all be her enemies. You will be her tool, Ann."

Her face became flushed. She started to tremble. "Only troublemakers, outcasts, and malcontents will be named. We do this place a favor! It is no concern of yours, Susanna English. Why don't you go back to your fancy house with all the gables and not meddle in matters you don't understand?"

"I understand all I need to," I said. "I wish to God I did not understand."

Once again her smile took on an evil quality. "I hope you don't intend to break charity with us and tell what we are about. You wouldn't do that, would you, Susanna English?"

Now it was my turn to tremble. For what I was facing in this young girl was evil, pure and simple. I had heard of evil all my life, in Meeting, from ministers. I had heard people speak of it in casual terms. But never before I stood in that room that day with Ann Putnam did I feel its presence. I did then, and it was terrible to behold.

"I think you will not tell what you know," she said quietly. "For if you do, we will cry out on your parents."

"Cry out?" I asked.

"Let me put it plain, Susanna English. We will name them as witches."

"Everyone will then know you for a grievous liar!" I shouted.

Her laughter pealed. "We can name anyone. The power has been given to us by the ministers themselves. They anxiously look to us for the names. In a fortnight, we will be questioned again in the Parris study. I think you will not tell, Susanna English."

"God forgive you!"

"Hold your tongue! Or your household will be touched."

I could not believe this was happening. I looked around me, around the well-appointed company room that so resembled ours at home, a room that bespoke the solid dedication to God and family and place that was at the heart of all Puritan belief. And I knew in my bones, in that moment, that what went on in these sturdy walls would soon disrupt our whole way of life in Salem.

And I was powerless to do anything about it. I felt myself go limp with fear. "I must go now," I said to Ann Putnam.

"Do go. And remember what I said this day. And thank you for the apple tarts."

Her evil laughter followed me out of the room.

HER EVIL LAUGH
ter stayed with me. I heard it at night in my dreams. But I told no one of what had transpired. For I had no doubt that if I did, Ann Putnam would bring trouble down on my family.

If she proved to be anything like her mother, she was not a person to be dallied with. I did not wish to find out.

So I did not betray her. But her disclosures troubled me greatly. So I worked harder at chores, helping Mama more and more in her shop. Partly to redeem myself for the sin of keeping such knowledge from my parents and partly to hear what news neighbors brought in.

Joseph Putnam came in one day to purchase the red kersey bed cover. I had always liked Joseph Putnam. He was tall and amiable, a fine-looking man with a face that had both a sober strength and a boyish eagerness.

"How is the new babe?" Mama inquired.

"Thriving."

Mama wrapped the bed cover and tied the bundle for him. He thanked her solemnly. "Words should be let go with due consideration, Mary," he said.

Mama nodded and waited.

"I know you and your husband to be people of common sense. In the near future, we people of like mind will have to support each other."

"Is there trouble, Joseph?" Mama was never one to shilly-shally about things.

"I feel the hysteria connected with this witch business will get worse before it abates. It is fed on distrust in our community, on old quarrels between neighbors."