by Alex Flinn
I felt hot, sweating around my temples, and my stomach seemed like a trapdoor, dropping to nothingness. I had been ill since that day at Betty’s house, since the first time I had seen the wolf. I had chills every night, and sometimes, my body went stiff as a tree trunk.
My parents did not care. They spoke only of the farm, the town, what was happening to others, but not of me, their daughter. Salem had been in an uproar. Betty and Abigail had accused first Tituba, then two other women, of causing Betty’s symptoms. Abigail had started to develop the same symptoms. There was evil afoot in Salem.
Some did not believe it. The night before, my parents had returned from a town meeting. I was charged, of course, with watching the younger children, so I was allowed to stay up. Later, I overheard them speaking as they lay in bed, believing me to be asleep.
“She is going to get herself into trouble if she does not stop saying that,” my father had said.
“Perhaps that is what she wants,” my mother replied. “Martha always was contrary.”
I had then been drifting off to sleep and was disturbed by their conversation. I covered my ears against it, but my father’s voice was quite loud. Still, I didn’t really hear his words until he said, “She is calling our reverend’s daughter a liar.”
“Reverend Parris—”
“Nay. I know. He is a hard man. But anyone can see how the poor girl suffers.”
I knew Betty was not a liar, if for no other reason than that she was too stupid to lie believably.
My interest piqued, I had listened more intently.
“She says she does not believe in witches,” Mother said. “Does not believe. As if it is for Martha Corey to decide whether witches exist.”
Martha Corey. Martha Corey was an old woman whose children had grown and whose husband was known for having a temper. Martha herself was stern and unforgiving and quite frightening. When I saw her at church, I tried to avoid her gaze. What had she said about Betty?
My mother continued to speak. “But she is a God-fearing woman,” she said.
“Sometimes, those who feign godliness are truly in league with the devil.”
I shivered when my father said that and pictured Goodwife Corey with the devil. I knew it was the devil because he appeared the way Reverend Parris always said the devil would look, when he spoke of him in church, a dark man with horns. Goodwife Corey was with him, touching his hand, helping him, and he was counseling her on what to say, telling her to say Betty had lied, and as I was watching him, hearing him, I began to shiver and shake in my bed. Then my body was racked with pain, pain in my stomach, in my arms, as if I was being stuck with needles and knives or bitten by a million teeth, demons’ teeth from hell. I wanted to run to my mother, to cry out, but my limbs were stiff, I could not move. My body and my hair were drenched in sweat.
Finally, I fell asleep. When I awakened in the morning, my father was already gone, my mother occupied with the children. They did not care about my ailments. That was why I went to town.
That was how the trouble had happened, how I had met the wolf, been seen by the servant girl.
“That girl has seen me speaking to a wolf,” I told the wolf now. “She will think I am a witch.”
“Perhaps you are,” the wolf said.
“No. I am not!” I stamped my foot. I was not, was I? No. For one thing, the devil had never visited my bedside. But for another, witches had power, and I had none. If I were a witch, the first thing I would do would be to enchant Mercy Lewis to leave our house so I could have Mary all to myself. Next, I would make the babies behave. Or, perhaps, make there be fewer of them.
No, first I would make the pains in my stomach go away. It wasn’t fair that I was always so kind yet suffered so. Perhaps Martha Corey was the one tormenting me. I could almost feel her nails digging into my skin. Was she bringing the devil to bite me?
“What should I do?” I asked the wolf.
The wolf stared ahead, his cool eyes reflecting the snow. “I do not know. But you must act soon, lest you pay the consequences for something that is not your fault.”
“What do you mean?” Again, I felt a sudden chill.
“The girl,” the wolf said. “Her name is Kendra Hilferty. She is the servant for the Harwood family, I believe.”
“Aye.” ’Twas true. She was merely a servant.
“But if she accuses you of witchcraft, it is possible someone might believe her.”
I felt another stab of pain as the wolf said this.
“Perhaps you should run along home,” the wolf said.
I did run along home, and I helped with the meal, stirred the stew, and set the table, but I could not stop thinking of the wolf’s words. If Kendra accused me of witchcraft, if she said she had seen me speaking to the wolf, someone might believe her. They might believe the wolf was my “familiar.” I could be taken to jail with Sarah Good and Tituba. I would be shamed, a laughingstock, perhaps hanged. Everyone would believe I was in league with the devil. It pounded on my mind, on my head.
But why had the wolf chosen me?
Finally, the table was set and all were gathered around it, and Father began the prayer.
I alone of my siblings loved to hear my father at prayer. My father had a voice better than any preacher or reverend. When he spoke at table, I felt at one with God.
“Oh lover of thy people,” he began.
But today, I could not stop thinking about the wolf. Kendra Hilferty and the wolf.
“Thou has placed my whole being in the hands of Jesus, my commander, my redeemer . . . .”
I began to feel hot, as though coals pressed upon my shoulders. Was I too near the fire? But one look at Deliverance at my side told me that it was not hot. It was March.
“Keep me holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.”
Separate from sinners. Was this happening to me because I had consorted with Tituba, because I had believed in her powers? Now I felt an icy claw, clutching at my throat. The devil’s hand! I began to shiver.
“May I not know the voice of strangers but go to Him where He is, follow where He leads.”
I trembled. The bench below me shook from my quivering, shivering body. I tried to stop it, to concentrate on the prayer, on following where He led.
“Stop it, Ann,” Tom said.
“Shh.” Mother gave us a stern look.
Father kept praying. “Thou has bathed me once for all in the sin-removing fountain. . . .”
The hand on my throat strangled me now. I could not breathe. I was choking, struggling to swallow.
“Cleanse me now from the day’s defilement, from its faults. . . .”
No breath. No air. No air.
“That I may exhibit a perfect character in Jesus,” Father prayed.
I fell to the floor, gasping for breath, my heart feeling the twist of a knife.
Mother sprang from her seat. I heard the straight wooden chair fall over beside me.
“What is it? Ann! What is happening?”
Father kept praying. “O, master, who did wash thy disciples’ feet . . .”
“Thomas! She is having some sort of fit!” My mother’s voice seemed to be coming through a wall of water, and my body was a world of pain, my stomach, my head, my heart.
“What is it, Ann? Ann! Speak to me!” To my father, she said, “It is bewitchment!”
“Ann?” My father knelt beside me now, and I could hear Deliverance crying. “Ann! What is happening?”
I writhed from side to side, clutching my stomach to my knees to hold in the pain, gasping, glad of the little breath I had.
“They . . . hurt . . . me!” I gasped out.
“Who does?” Mother took hold of my shoulders. “Who has done this to you?”
I coughed, choked, tried to form the words, for I knew the source of my trouble. “Kendra!” I finally gasped. “She sticks me with pins! She pushes the breath from my lungs!”
“Who?” Father asked.
“I think she means the Harw
oods’ girl,” Mother said. She peered into my face. “No one else?”
“And Martha Corey,” I said, for I knew it was true, knew she was in league with the devil, knew she tormented me, knew they would believe it.
And then the pain became too much for me, and I could not speak, could not move. My body went stiff, and the world went blank.
5
Kendra
That night, I could not sleep. I huddled on my pallet, which was near the window and thus subject to the freezing cold. I clutched the buttons James had given me, turning them over and over in my hands.
And then I found myself pressing my hands together. What if James was right? The girl had seen me. She could implicate me as a witch. They would rip out my fingernails to make me confess. Should I run away?
But I did not want to. There was some part of my personality that did not run away, that did not want to be defeated. I had done nothing wrong, so why should I leave Salem?
The wind whistled through the cracks in the window frame.
Also, I could not leave James.
James. When I had seen him in the shop, something stirred in me.
No, not that. Not merely that. Certainly, he was handsome. I could not recall when I had been more drawn to a man. But it was more than that. I also could not recall when someone, anyone, had been so concerned for my well-being. Not since my parents had died so many years before.
The Harwoods had also become something of a family to me. In the end, I did not wish to leave Salem. Salem was my home. I was tired of running and wanted to be in one place. I was tired of giving up and letting others—awful others—have their way.
The wind whistled outside, wailing to come in, and then I heard a rapping on the window across the room. I gathered the thin quilt around myself and pulled it over my head. I had to go to sleep. There was a world of wood to chop and chickens to kill for dinner. I could not do it on an hour’s sleep.
Yet the rapping continued. It was too regular to be a branch. But what else could it be? I rose, clutching the quilt around me. I traversed the room. I slept on the first floor, while the family slept on the second, so it was up to me. My plan was to open the window, find the delinquent branch, and snap it in two.
When I reached the window, there was no branch, only a crow.
I undid the latch, but it would not retreat. Instead, it stared at me.
“James?” I whispered.
It continued to stare. The wind howled behind it, burning my hands.
“James, is that you?”
At this, the crow flew a few feet away and landed near the woodpile. Through the snow and tree branches, I saw it become a man. He beckoned to me.
Quick as I could, I shut the window, donned my shoes and coat, and ran out the door. I pulled it shut behind me. I ran to the woodpile.
He was not there. I looked around, the snow whipping at my face. Finally, I spied him, as a crow still, perched atop that woodpile. He flew away.
I turned myself into a crow and followed him.
We flew, higher, higher, over the houses and trees and fields, over the church and the little shops of town. It was glorious, for I had seldom flown with another of my kind before. Finally, we reached the woods. I saw James look back at me, and I imagined him as a boy, playing in the snow. I flapped to catch up to him, but when I was close, he dove down under a branch. He was too quick for me to follow. I flew around him, swooping at him, and finally, we reached the thickest, darkest part of the forest, away from any homes. It was there that he landed. I set down too, about ten feet away.
He started toward me.
I ran. “You cannot get me!” I shouted over my shoulder.
“I will catch you!” he hollered back, and he ran after me. The snow was shallow, for little of it could pass through the looming trees. Still, I was not a fast runner. But neither was he.
“Why are you running from me?” he yelled. “You followed me out here!”
Just for fun, I waved my arm at him. “Catch me!”
I hastened my step, hearing his footsteps like thundering hooves behind me. I wanted him to catch me. But, more than that, I wanted to run. I wanted to be free like the little girl I once was back in Eyam, before I lost everything and found my powers.
My foot hit a rock, and I stumbled. I fell to the ground, only the snow breaking my fall.
“Kendra!” James screamed behind me. “Kendra! Are you all right?”
Then he was beside me, gathering me up me into his arms. He lifted me toward him.
“Tell me you are not hurt.”
“I am not hurt,” I whispered, leaning into him. I felt his warm breath on my face, and I longed to be closer to him, to have not even my thin coat between us. To have him kiss me.
He did. He kissed me. He kissed me.
He kissed me.
Finally, he stopped.
“I have been wanting to do that since I first laid eyes upon you.”
I laughed. “Why?”
“You are lovely. Is that not reason enough?”
I shook my head, no, for I knew there was more, and I wanted to hear it.
“No, then. I wanted to kiss you for we are the same. We are alike, clever and full of mischief, and have been through the same things and will be through the same experiences. We have both lost everything yet lived on. And on. And because you are beautiful.”
“Better.” I struggled to my feet. I wanted him to kiss me again, but it was probably not fitting to allow him to kiss me on the ground, especially in those deserted woods.
He pulled me toward him. “But you must leave Salem, Kendra.”
“Must I?” I stared at him. “First, you kiss me. Then, you say I must leave?”
“Yes. It is not safe. There are more murmurings. Your performance at the shop did not help. They are closing in.”
I thought of Ann, Ann with the wolf. He was right, I knew. But still . . .
“I do not want to leave . . . not alone.” I willed him to say he would go with me. “I have finally found a place where I am comfortable, with the Harwoods and . . .”
“And what?” Even in the darkness, I could tell that he was smiling, laughing at me.
“Do not make me say it.” The wind chilled my bones. “With you.”
“Would you leave with me?” He moved closer. “Would you?” He whispered it into my hair.
“Yes,” I whispered back. “Yes.”
“Then you must go tomorrow. Leave Salem. Go to Boston and find lodgings. I will follow.”
Was he asking me to marry him? He must have been, because it would not be proper for us to travel together otherwise. I would say yes. Though we had known each other but a short time, such brief courtships were commonplace. We had forever to become acquainted. “Why can we not both go now?”
“For us both to leave in the night would excite suspicion, especially since suspicion has already been excited about you.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Putnam girl is speaking of you.”
I drew in a sharp breath. “How did you . . . ?”
He took my wrists in both his hands and pulled me toward him. “Wait in Boston but a few days, Kendra. I will say I have an urgent matter at home, and I will follow. I will follow, and we shall be married there.”
It was all I wanted. “Yes, yes. I will.”
“But now, the sun is about to rise. Fly only as far as the edge of the woods, then walk home and get into your bed before the Harwoods find you missing.”
“Yes.” I did as he said. We were to be married! I flew, happily as a lively sparrow, then fairly ran the rest of the way home. But when I reached the Harwoods, men were there, waiting for me. One had a warrant in his hand.
It was as James predicted. I was arrested as a witch within the day of seeing Ann Putnam and Betty Parris in town. I was taken to jail with another woman, an old woman named Martha Corey.
In jail, they stripped us naked and examined our bodies for witches’ marks.
I felt the jailers’ hands groping at me, at my legs, my breasts, taking far too much time and too much pleasure at their task. They searched the pits of my arms, my nostrils, the undersides of my eyelids, every cavity of my body. Every cavity. When they found nothing, they examined me again. But, of course, they found no mark, no scar, no scab. My body was young, and it was perfect. I was a witch, so I made it so.
Martha Corey was not one, and she was old, her skin spotted with age, so the jailers found numerous marks upon her.
“What is this?” they asked her with each new discovery.
“’Tis a mole,” she said each time. “You have one yourself. On your cheek. With a hair growing from it.”
I wished there was some way I could have removed her marks, made her skin as clear and young as mine, but that in itself would be suspect. She was a tart old woman, though, and seemed little disturbed by what was happening.
Finally, they threw us back into the jail cell. I knew that elsewhere in the jail were others who had been arrested weeks earlier. It must have been near dawn, and we were very briefly alone, lying on a pallet of straw on the cold jailhouse floor.
“Are you frightened?” I asked Martha.
She laughed, a hard laugh. “Why would I be frightened? I am no witch.”
I nodded, knowing that to be true.
“There is no such thing as witches,” she said.
And I knew that not to be. “Do you think that is a good thing to say?” It seemed to me that that mocked the accusers’ beliefs. Much as I enjoyed a good mocking, these people were very serious. To be a woman, and to express strong opinions, caused one to be called a witch. There will always be those who fear women with power, even if the power is merely in our tongues.
Still, it was best to hold mine, and I wished Martha would hold hers.
But she did not. “I do not care,” she declared. “I am a pious woman, a God-fearing woman. Would they believe the rantings of children over the word of such a one as me?”
I sighed. “I do not know. Ann Putnam, she is the daughter of Thomas Putnam, a well-regarded citizen.”
“A well-regarded fool.” Again, she laughed.
I wondered what I would say if questioned. Could I mention seeing Ann speaking with the wolf? It seemed I could not, for she was Putnam’s daughter and thus above reproach. Yet I knew that was why she accused me. I had no wish to harm her, none at all. I had no wish to harm anyone.
