She cleared her throat and said, “Yes, well, of course the challenge that the school faced first and foremost was ensuring the safety of all our girls.”
“Well, you didn’t do a very good job of that, from what I can see. How many students are said to be suffering from the Mystery Illness as of right now?”
“Well, you know, I couldn’t really say.”
“Our sources tell us it’s more than thirty,” Bebe said, and my mother gasped along with the studio audience.
“I can neither confirm nor deny that,” said Nurse Hocking, who was looking very much like she didn’t want to be there.
“Isn’t it true that the students were first told that this was a rare response to the third shot in the series of vaccinations given to prevent human papillomavirus?”
“That was an early hypothesis, yes. We looked into it. Reactions to that vaccine have been reported in some communities.”
“Some communities,” Bebe repeated. “Just not Danvers, isn’t that correct?”
All the mothers aligned on the couch on Good Day, USA were watching Nurse Hocking with accusing eyes.
“That’s correct,” Nurse Hocking said in a strangled-sounding voice.
“So eventually you called in a so-called expert epidemiologist to help you go hunting through your students’ private medical files because you thought the illness might be caused by . . . what?”
“PANDAS,” Nurse Hocking said.
“That’s a lie and you know it!” cried Kathy Carruthers, but Clara Rutherford’s mom placed a hand on her arm and quieted her down.
“And what is PANDAS?”
“It stands for Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal infections. We had a very strong suspicion that—”
“That proved to be wrong, didn’t it?”
Bebe Appleton! Going for the jugular.
“This is better than watching the Pats game,” my father remarked.
“Definitely better offense,” Mom agreed.
“Well, I think that’s overstating it somewhat. The thing with PANDAS is—”
“Isn’t it true that this so-called PANDAS isn’t even a real diagnosis?”
“I knew it!” Kathy Carruthers spat. After that, her lips kept moving, but her microphone had been cut.
“No, well, technically, yes. In a way, but—”
“And isn’t it true that you and your ostensible expert leapt to this conclusion without sufficient evidence, even though there are no examples anywhere of PANDAS causing a girl’s hair to fall out, like poor Jennifer’s did?”
“But—”
Nurse Hocking gripped the arms of her chair and looked like she was on the point of sprinting off the stage to go hide. I didn’t blame her. I mean, I thought she was nice. She really had been trying to help. And it’s not like she was the only one who was totally wrong.
“Tell me, Nurse Hocking. At what point during the spread of the Mystery Illness were you approached to write a book about your experiences?”
“What?” my mother and father gasped, and Michael said, “Ooh, snap.”
“A book? Laurel Hocking’s writing a book?” my father exclaimed.
“The hell she is,” said my mother. “Look at Kathy Carruthers. I think her head’s about to explode.”
“I don’t see how that’s any of your—” the nurse sputtered.
“Weren’t you approached right after it became clear that the illness couldn’t possibly have been caused by the HPV vaccine?”
“I can’t really—”
“And isn’t it true that you were given to understand that there’d be a lot more money coming your way if many more girls fell sick before the solution was found?”
“That’s preposterous!”
“We at Good Day, USA think it isn’t,” Bebe Appleton remarked, having been passed a sheaf of papers by someone standing off camera.
“This is crazy,” I breathed.
“In fact”—America’s most trusted newswoman smiled a sharklike smile at Laurel Hocking—“weren’t you told in this e-mail dated February 21, 2012, that if more than twenty girls fell sick before you were able to solve the mystery, your advance for a tell-all book would increase . . . by a factor of ten?”
“This is ridiculous!” Laurel Hocking shouted as she fumbled for the microphone pinned to her lapel. She was about to go stalking off, probably into an eternity of obscurity.
“That’s harsh,” Michael said. “She just let people keep getting sick? To, like, get more publicity?”
“That’s insane,” I said, crossing my arms. “I can’t believe she’d do that. That can’t be right.”
“Fortunately,” Bebe Appleton said, beaming, “our next guest is here to tell us once and for all what’s really happening to the girls at St. Joan’s, when we come back, right after this. Stay with us.”
Chipper, jazzy morning show transitional music while everyone on the couch pretended to talk to each other.
“Well. Guess you won’t be seeing her at your assembly Friday,” my mother said. “Mike?” She waved her coffee mug at my father, who obediently took it into the kitchen.
“But that’s crazy!” I exclaimed again. “I just can’t believe she’d do that. Let people get sick on purpose? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Well, Collie,” my mother sighed, “when you’re older, you’ll realize that even nice people can sometimes do bad things.”
I scowled at my mother. What, did she think I didn’t know people could really suck when I least expected it?
“Cream!” Dad cried, handing my mother more coffee and twerking his way back to the couch. “Cash rules my life, too, Mikey.”
“Welcome back,” interrupted the television. “If you’re just joining us, we’re here talking to the brave girls from St. Joan’s Academy in Danvers, Massachusetts, who for the past eight weeks have been suffering from a bizarre Mystery Illness. An investigation by this station has just revealed that the school nurse, Laurel Hocking, has allegedly stood in the way of getting the students the help that they needed in order to put herself at the center of the publicity. So what’s really hurting these girls? And what can be done about it? Joining us now—you know her from her best-selling book Mouthful of Poison: My Story and the hit movie of the same title—is environmental activist Bethany Witherspoon. Bethany, welcome.”
The studio audience went berserk. Well, of course they would, I mean, it’s Bethany Witherspoon. Everybody’s heard of Bethany Witherspoon. Especially after that movie came out, the one where she took on some huge hydrofracking company with a toddler on her hip and a bad dye job and emerged triumphant.
“I don’t believe this,” my mother said, shaking her head.
“Wow. She’s held up,” my father said.
“I can’t believe Clara’s just sitting there talking to Bethany Witherspoon. Bethany Witherspoon and Bebe Appleton, together, at the same time!” I hugged my knees to my chest, half envious and half appalled.
“Yeah, well,” my mother said. “Wait and see what they say before you get all impressed.”
“Thank you, Bebe. It’s great seeing you again. You look so tan!” Bethany and Bebe were obviously old friends.
Bebe laughed, shaking her hair. “Well, thanks! Now, Bethany. You have a theory about what’s really going on in Danvers, isn’t that right?”
“That’s right. And I’ll tell you first and foremost that no school nurse or epidemiologist would have gotten this. No strep infection I ever heard of caused a girl’s hair to just fall out, am I right?”
She patted the Other Jennifer on a knee and everyone nodded.
Laurel Hocking, meanwhile, had either left or been ejected from Good Day, USA.
“Now I’ve got a question for you all. Did you know when you enrolled at that fancy private schoo
l that it was basically right on top of a Superfund site?”
The mothers on the couch all looked dumbfounded.
“A Superfund site!” Bebe Appleton exclaimed, because none of the mothers seemed able to respond appropriately.
“That’s right, Bebe. Way back in 1969 a paint factory in Danvers had a tremendous explosion, causing what we think is tricoethylene to seep into the groundwater for the past forty-plus years. And it’s just been lying there this whole time. They cordoned off the site and did some preliminary cleanup back in the eighties, but it is still officially on the list as eligible for federal funding, and as far as we can tell, no one’s made any move to clean it up for good.”
“So you’re basically saying there’s a lake of . . . what? Chemicals? And it’s under the school.”
“Toxic chemicals. Yes. A number of the girls reported first falling sick after having contact with the athletic fields, and it’s also possible that exposure is cumulative, building up over time. That’s our theory. And it would explain why the numbers of sick girls just keep going up. It’s a classic example of something we call ‘sick building syndrome.’ I’ll be going to Danvers with my team of scientists to check things out at the end of this week. But tricoethylene exposure through groundwater, or concentrations in an HVAC system, or even dirt, like you have on a playing field, can have a number of very serious side effects, especially for growing girls. Taken in isolation, it’s easy to confuse those side effects with something like a vaccine reaction or an autoimmune disease, when what we’re really dealing with is a failure of corporate ethics vis-à-vis the environment, and an unwillingness by the government to step up and take responsibility for their actions.”
“Do you think the school would’ve been able to figure this out on their own?” Bebe asked, frowning with concern.
“Well, you know, probably not. Though we were contacted by a group of concerned parents—”
“Kathy Carruthers,” I said. I turned to my mother. “At the meeting, remember? She said they were going to take steps.”
“I guess that’s what they did,” my mother agreed.
“—who told us they’d noticed a strange glow coming from the athletic fields at certain times of night. They felt that the school wasn’t asking enough questions, and frankly, we agreed with them.”
“What glow?” I cried. “There’s no glow on the athletic field. Are they hallucinating?”
“And it’s a good thing you did. What do you say, girls? Are you ready for Bethany Witherspoon to come to Danvers and figure out how to get you all well again?” Bebe asked the couchful of my classmates.
“Absolutely,” said Clara Rutherford, our spokesperson.
“It’s what we’ve all been hoping for,” said Leigh Carruthers, who, I should mention, didn’t even look like she was vibrating anymore.
“Honestly, Bebe, all we really want is to know how to keep our kids safe. Is that too much to ask?” Kathy Carruthers, with her mic back on, was having her moment.
“It sure isn’t.” Bebe smiled, patting Kathy on her knee.
“I’ll say it isn’t,” Bethany Witherspoon agreed.
“Bethany Witherspoon, coming to the rescue of some truly brave young women at St. Joan’s Academy in Danvers, Massachusetts. Bethany? Keep us informed.”
“You know I will, Bebe.” Bethany Witherspoon grinned straight into the camera, her eye glinting with certainty.
“Holy cow,” I said as my phone vibrated in my sweatshirt pocket.
I pulled it out.
Anjali.
They’re wrong.
I frowned and tapped back.
But who’s right?
INTERLUDE
SALEM VILLAGE, MASSACHUSETTS
MAY 30, 1706
Sarah Good and Sarah Osburn were examined that day as well,” I tell Reverend Green. “When they were finished, they all three were taken to the jail in chains. Goody Good’s daughter, Dorothy, hurled a rock at the man who was dragging away her mother. The rock struck him on the cheek and drew blood, and Dorothy screamed at me that it was my fault they were taking her mother away.”
The baby’s screams—for she was a little thing, Dorothy Good, and even now is small for her age, and insensible like a child—echo in my ears to this day. “Mama! Mama!” She’d clutched her mother’s filthy skirts until some women stepped forward to pry her free.
Reverend Green is thinking horrible things of me. I can see it in his face. Yet I revel in it. I want him to see my debasement. I want him to see everything about me.
“And the examinations,” he says. “They continued the next day?”
There’s a book, I’ve heard, that a famous divine wrote, in which one can read everything that happened to us then. I’ve been shown a copy, but little good it did me. I’ve never learned my letters. To sign my name I draw a curl, the shape of the lock of hair on my baby sister’s forehead. I can never encounter the Word of God myself. I always need a man to bring it to me.
“They did,” I say. “But something else happened first.”
That night, March 1, I’m walking Abby and Betty Parris back to the parsonage with my parents and some others. We’ve been in the meetinghouse all day, and my back aches from the pew, my eyes are red from crying, and my throat is raw. Reverend Parris walks with his head down, his wife following close on his heels, in her hood with the topknot.
“I don’t understand,” he murmurs to himself. “Of course the Devil could tempt the likes of Sarah Good, and Sarah Osburn, too. I’d have guessed them above anyone. But how could she not tell me? Right here, in my own house!”
With Tittibe gone, there’s no one to offer us anything warm to drink when we return but her husband, John, who’s slumped in a corner. When he observes our entry into the house, he gets up without a word and leaves. No one remarks on his departure. Mrs. Parris busies herself to tend to us while my mother looks on with disapproval.
“I never trusted that Indian,” my mother remarks to no one in particular. “She had a way about her I didn’t like. It’s no wonder, if you ask me. She were never a proper Christian.”
“But Mama,” I say, rubbing my tired eyes with my fists. “You said she loved Jesus as well as anyone.”
“Annie! I never said that. Anyone who sends her spirit out in the night to torment innocent children is no Christian.”
Mr. Parris sits in his great chair with his head in his hands.
“Thomas,” he says at length to my father, “I’m lost. Will you pray with me?”
“Of course,” Papa says, and he sits near the Reverend. They fold their hands together and bend their heads.
“Betty, Abby,” Mrs. Parris says. “You girls go on up to bed.”
Abby wraps an arm around Betty Parris and steers her to the attic. The other Betty, Betty Hubbard, and I huddle together on the bench along the wall with my mother. Mary Warren had to go back to the Procters, who’ll be wondering why she shirked her duties that day. I wish Betty Hubbard and I could go up to bed, too. I’ve never felt so tired. My arms and legs are made of wet oak.
The men pray quietly together, and sleepiness overwhelms me. I lean my cheek against my mother’s shoulder, but she pushes me off and snaps, “Sit up, Annie.”
A knock comes on the door, and someone opens it to a man standing in the dark with snow on his shoulders. He’s carrying a package under his arm, wrapped in cloth.
“Mrs. Parris,” he says, removing his hat.
“Oh, Deacon,” she cries, getting to her feet. “How good of you to come.”
“Word’s all over Boston,” the man says. “My congregation’s been praying for your delivery. Satan may try to pull down the house of God, but he’s bound to fail. For that, I came to help. I want him to see this.” He indicates the praying Reverend Parris with a nod of his head.
The Reverend concludes his pray
er with my father and gets to his feet, shaking hands with the Boston deacon whose name I don’t know.
“The Devil will use his wiles,” Reverend Parris says. “But we’ll be sober and vigilant. He’ll not prevail. I won’t give in, no matter how they push me.”
“Look here, Samuel,” the deacon says, unwrapping his package.
It’s a book, bound in rich burgundy leather. Everyone leans in for a look. My father has a few books, and he’s careful of them and doesn’t let my brothers read them. My mother and I cannot read, but more than once I’ve wished they had some pretty pictures for me to look at. When I see that this one doesn’t promise to have any pictures either, I lean back against the wall and close my eyes.
“Ah! William Perkins. A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft. I’ve preached from his discourse on the Lord’s Prayer, but I haven’t read this,” Reverend Parris says, running his hands over the pages in appreciation.
“My gift to you. There’s a passage I’d like very much for you to see.”
The men riffle through the pages, looking for what they want.
“Annie,” my mother says. “Get up and fetch me some cider.”
Mrs. Parris has come to sit next to her, and they want to talk together. Betty Hubbard has slumped to her side and fallen asleep on the bench, her mouth open in a snore. Sulking, I haul myself to my feet and busy myself at the other end of the room.
“You see?” the deacon from Boston says.
Reverend Parris’s eyes are alight.
“Why, John, this could reveal them all. They’d be forced into the light. If she names them, they’ve no choice but to prosecute.”
“Exactly.”
“What is it, Samuel?” Mrs. Parris asks in a fragile voice.
My mother takes Mrs. Parris’s hands in her lap and squeezes them.
The Reverend has gotten to his feet and is pacing the parsonage’s hall. My father watches him, his own eyes glittering with comprehension.
“For months now, we’ve known there was an alliance against me,” Mr. Parris says. “A secret world within our world. They’ve stopped our firewood, they’ve spoken against me in town. They’ve denied us sure ownership of our home. They’ve done all they can to tear down God’s work in this wilderness, and me as his agent. Most of them have been too cowardly to do so in the open. They’ve enlisted the Devil’s help. They’ve brought their scheming into my own home, against defenseless children. But now there’s a way for us to root them out.”
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