Salem's Daughter

by Maggie Osborne

“Thank heaven!” Abigail Williams breathed loudly the moment she stepped into the kitchen. “They’re all so boring! Everything is boring. There’s nothing around here for sport! And Sunday is the worst.”

  Ann Junior smiled at the reverend’s niece. “You make your own sport, Abigail. I saw you pinching Betty all through the text.”

  “Pish! I never saw such a crybaby!” Abigail snorted in contempt, and shoved her cousin, scorning the tears rising in Betty Parris’s blue eyes.

  “That’s enough, Abigail Williams!” A sharp voice cut through the kitchen, and the girls turned toward a dark woman rocking near the fireplace. Tituba removed a corncob pipe from her mouth, and her chocolate eyes stared hard at Abigail. “The reverend and Mrs. do a kindness to take you in. You want me telling himself how you treat this baby?” She extended stick-thin arms, and little Betty Parris scrambled into Tituba’s narrow lap, burying her bright head in Tituba’s neck. Tituba leaned back in the rocker and stroked Betty’s blond curls. “There, there, baby. Jest rest. Jest rest.” She glared at Abigail.

  Abigail shrugged, flouncing golden curls beneath her cap. “Betty’s seven years old, she’s not a baby anymore.” Abigail spun toward Bristol. At ten years old and developing a respectable bosom, Abigail aligned herself more with the older girls. “Would you like a walk, Bristol?” Adroitly Abigail sought to change the subject.

  “Not today,” Bristol answered, more tartly than she’d intended. Generally she enjoyed the younger girls of the village, but Abigail Williams’ unpredictable behavior was unnerving. No one could trust what the girl might do or say.

  Turning aside from Abigail’s glowering frown, Bristol joined Charity near the fire, taking a stool and turning expectant eyes toward Tituba, Occasionally Tituba could be coaxed into remembrances of her native Barbados, and she would spin wonderful tales of a sunny land where snow never fell, where odd plantings grew, and where dark-skinned people walked with no shoes and no cares. Or so Tituba chose to tell. Sugarcane grew as high as a man’s head in Barbados, and rum flowed as plentifully as sunshine. Even babies sucked on sugar tits soaked in rum. Tituba and the reverend’s man, John, had toiled in the canefields until Reverend Parris bought them and converted them from pagan superstition to the true path.

  “Will you tell about the summer place?” Bristol asked.

  Tituba’s stories made the reverend’s kitchen a favorite gathering place for the village girls.

  “Please?” Charity begged.

  “No, no!” Abigail objected. “I’m sick to dying of hearing about Barbados! It’s boring. Tell our fortunes instead!” she demanded.

  Bristol frowned. Abigail truly exceeded the bounds of reason. She’d seen Goody Martha Cory lecturing the girl, and Bristol thought in this case Goody Cory’s ministrations were sorely needed. “Abigail! You know better than to suggest fortunes! That’s forbidden. It’s witchcraft!”

  Abigail flared. “Stop this, stop that! Don’t do this, don’t do that! I’m sick to dying of it all! Don’t any of you want a little excitement? Besides, fortunes are fun... and it’s only white witchcraft, not the bad kind!”

  “Witchcraft is witchcraft!” Bristol snapped. “One kind is as unnatural as the other.”

  Ann Putnam Junior shook her finger and clicked her tongue. “What you want, Abigail Williams, is to have the world spin just around you. The moment no one pays any attention, you’re up to mischief!”

  “You’re a fine one to talk, Ann Junior! That’s not...” Abigail’s angry retort broke off as Betty Parris gasped.

  Betty bolted upright on Tituba’s lap. “Tituba? Tituba?” She leveled wide teary eyes at Abigail. “Now, look what you’ve done! She’s gone away again.” Betty slid from Tituba’s rigid lap and ran to fling her arms around Charity’s neck.

  Every eye swung to fix on Tituba’s stiff body. The old woman rocked in her chair, the pipe dangling from bony fingers and her dulled eyes staring blankly at something no one else could see.

  Nervously Bristol glanced at the others. She guessed her own face to be as white as theirs. She’d heard whispers that Tituba had the sight, but this was the first time Bristol had observed for herself.

  The fire popped, and all the girls jumped in a charged silence. Tituba’s chair squeaked back and forth, backward then forward. Tiny hairs rose along the back of Bristol’s neck, and she shivered. She imagined that despite the crackling fire, the temperature abruptly dropped.

  Suddenly Tituba’s body jerked and appeared to coil in on itself. The chair rocked to a standstill. Tituba’s taut throat worked convulsively, and a strange voice emerged, split and cracking. “Four are and one is not,” she croaked, her chocolate eyes staring blindly into space. The girls’ pale faces turned, counting five. “The one who is not, departs by water.”

  Bristol gasped, and her hand flew to her throat.

  “Blackness on the land. One shall escape. One destroyed by flesh. One destroyed by thought. One destroyed by hemp. And the one who is not, shall stand in dark flames. Fear and darkness level the land. Many are no more.”

  Tituba’s glazed eyes blinked and cleared. She shook her grizzled head once, then leaned back in the rocker, drawing on her pipe.

  “Tituba!” Bristol’s breath released past dry lips, “You said... But what does it all mean? What...?” Her hands shook within the folds of her apron, and her face felt white as chalk. She glanced quickly at Charity, seeing the freckles standing out like painted dots. “Tituba?”

  But Tituba answered nothing. She reached her thin arms for Betty Parris, and the little girl ran happily to climb into Tituba’s lap.

  From the parlor drifted the voices of departing adults calling for the afternoon sermon.

  A sermon Bristol scarcely heard. She fidgeted beside Charity in the children’s pew, Charity no calmer than she. The entire episode was nonsense! A dangerous toying with forces best left untouched; catering to Satan’s minions tempted the hangman, invited spirits into a God-fearing home.

  And this in the parsonage! At another time, Bristol would have appreciated the grim humor, but she was too upset to enjoy the humorous ramifications of witchcraft in the reverend’s own kitchen.

  “... Four are and one is not....” The words spun over Reverend Parris’s drone. Bristol’s frightened gaze found an unbending head of sandy hair. A crimson stain fired her cheeks, and she dropped a shining head in earnest prayer.

  If Tituba could see into the settler’s cabin, did that mean the other upsetting words were true as well?

  “Heavenly Father,” Bristol began, but the whispered words lodged in her throat. A cracking voice cut above, repeating in her mind. “... And the one who is not, shall stand in dark flames....”

  5

  The Challenger rocked at anchor near the mouth of Salem harbor, her masts majestic against a clear cold sky. Deep within the cargo holds, acting as ballast, lay a fortune in lumber and sugar, secured by heavy knotted hemp. God willing, this fortune would be delivered intact to English buyers. To ensure God’s will, the Challenger mounted twenty-four guns, twelve to a side, as protection against pirates prowling English shipping lanes. The Challenger would not surrender her cargo easily; the guns were no idle threat. She’d faced battle before and was furbished to do so again.

  The groups of people onshore prayed the voyage would prove uneventful, but all eyed the cannon and felt privately assured. As they watched, a longboat splashed into the waves, knit caps bent over the oars. The Challenger required only her passengers to be under way.

  Noah shifted and cleared his throat, his broad-brimmed hat circling in his fingers. “Well, girl...” Green eyes watched the longboat rowing toward the pier, and his voice faltered.

  Bristol’s mouth felt as if dry stones clogged the passages. She lowered her head. All had been said that could be; she wouldn’t waste these precious minutes with another futile plea. She smoothed her brown dress with trembling hands.

  “Oh, Brissy!” Charity wailed. She flung herself on Bristol, arms clasping
her sister with fierce strength. “Oh, Brissy!”

  The girls clung to each other. Over Charity’s shoulder, Bristol’s swimming eyes noticed the second group on the wharf watching, but she didn’t care. Wiping a hand across her eyes, she stepped from Charity’s frantic hug.

  “Mama?” Bristol whispered haltingly. Hannah extended her hands, and for a long moment they stared into each other’s eyes. It seemed to Bristol that Hannah’s eyes were moist, but that couldn’t be; her mother never cried. Hannah leaned forward, offering herself in a stiff, awkward embrace.

  Hannah bit down on her lip and her strong chin quivered. “Mind your manners, missy.” Her voice emerged tight and choked. “I... I’ll miss you,” she murmured, and gently pushed Bristol away, dropping her eyes.

  I can’t bear this, I can’t! Bristol thought wildly. She battled an irrational urge to fling herself on the rotted wood and beg her father to reconsider. I’ll do anything, her mind screamed. Anything, just don’t send me away!

  The longboat bumped against the wharf, and a hard-eyed man climbed to the dock, standing a short distance from the two groups. His shaggy head dipped in a short nod toward the longboat, and he crossed his arms over his chest.

  Bristol swallowed a giant lump. “Oh, Papa.” All the despair in her world lay in those two words. She pulled forward the edge of her hood to hide her eyes.

  “‘Tis for the best, girl. Ye’ll come back stronger than when ye left.” His eyes sought his daughter’s face, but she wouldn’t look at him.

  The other group stepped past, and a slim, sober-faced woman of middle age accepted assistance into the longboat. The hard-eyed man stared pointedly at Bristol.

  The tears Bristol had vowed not to shed rivered down her pale cheeks. So many things remained unsaid; there was so much more she wanted to tell them all.

  Noah thrust out his hand, his green eyes memorizing her face. “There’s a small purse in yer trunk,” he said roughly. “Yer ma and I thought ye should have it.” He pumped her hand, reluctant to release her fingers, wishing she would look at him.

  Slowly Bristol lifted her streaming eyes and for an instant she wanted to throw her arms around her father’s neck and kiss his leathery cheek. But he was the one sending her away. Instead, she spun and ran blindly toward the hard-eyed man, and his hands lowered her to a jumble of feet and oars. The man jumped lightly into the boat and shouted. Sweating men bent to heave the long wooden oars, and the longboat shot through the water toward the waiting Challenger.

  Bristol faced the Challenger, her eyes wet, but her spine rigid as she knew Hannah would expect. Dimly she felt the other woman’s curious gaze, but Bristol ignored it. What did it matter that she’d made a public spectacle of her leave-taking? All that mattered were the people on the wharf behind. Her family... her home! Self-consciously she searched her apron pocket for a linen and blotted her eyes, certain she’d never been so alone in her life. In the deepest corner of her mind she hadn’t let herself believe this moment would actually arrive. Always she’d believed something would intervene to spare her.

  But the grunting men straining at the oars were real, not a bad dream. The salt spray stinging her cheeks was real. The Challenger, immense and armed, was real.

  The longboat nudged the oaken hull, and a pair of disembodied hands tossed a rope ladder over the side. The hard-eyed man scrambled upward, waving for Bristol and the other woman to follow.

  At the top, quick rough hands tugged her forward, then turned to the woman behind. Uncertain and disoriented, Bristol waited near the rail and looked around her, chewing her lip at the sheer size of a sailing ship. It appeared to stretch endlessly, intricately rigged with maze after maze of soaring rope. A pungent scent of pitch and tar filled her nostrils.

  To Bristol’s surprise, the sound of animals joined with the noise of men’s shouts and groaning rigging. Cages and pens lay scattered about the spar deck, filled with hens, turkeys, ducks, geese, and pigeons. Two cows, several calves, a few pigs, and two dozen sheep bawled from penned enclosures. The ship was a floating barnyard!

  A man rushed past Bristol, nearly toppling her onto the undulating deck, and she hastily stepped backward, removing herself from the frenzied lane of activity. Beside her, the second woman passenger seemed as confused as Bristol. The woman’s heavy-lidded eyes stared with perplexity and a faint disapproving look. Neither knew where she was expected to go.

  And no one appeared inclined to offer instruction. Every hand on board was occupied. Dark shapes swarmed up the ropes; more men hung in the rigging high overhead. A man’s voice shouted, and the sailing master’s crisp commands cut across the ship. Immediately sheets of canvas began dropping from the yards. Slowly the canvas filled and cupped with wind, until it snapped full with a sound like a pistol shot. At each sharp crack, the Challenger shuddered and strained like a tensing racehorse.

  Forward, a high squeal sounded from a turning crank, and the anchor, trailing mud and weed, broke from the sea with a sucking noise.

  Then slowly, amid a shouting, cracking, squealing, bawling din, the Challenger swung to port side, turning half-circle to face the open sea. She fired a deafening cannon salute, white puffs of smoke drifting across the decks. Overhead, the sails snapped and caught the wind, billowing into cups of cloud. The Challenger slowly moved through Salem’s difficult harbor mouth, gathering speed, the leadsman’s loud voice singing out fathoms.

  A tingle raced through Bristol’s blood, and her pulse thudded painfully in her throat. Frantic, forgetting everything but the desperate need for a last glimpse of home, she gathered her skirts and ran heedlessly over the ropes netting the deck. She dashed toward the stern, scrambling up a short flight of steps to the quarterdeck, and she stood gasping at the rail. Her knuckles whitened against the wood.

  Across a widening stretch of rolling water, she yearned toward the figures on the wharf. She couldn’t distinguish their faces, but Charity’s carroty curls and Noah’s red hair stood clearly against the drab, weathered shore buildings. Bristol waved wildly. Behind them, a horse skidded to a halt, the rider a dim male form.

  Bristol’s hand froze in the air. Caleb? A sob wrenched from her lips. Had Caleb come for her? Only to be too late? She dropped her head into her hands, the wind tearing her hood away. “No! Oh, no!” She bent away from the shoreline, unable to tolerate the despair of watching, and her hair lifted in the chill sea breeze, a brilliant red river flowing away from her ravaged face. The wind tugged and rippled the long silky strands, molding her gown to breasts and thighs, but Bristol felt nothing. Had the rider been Caleb?

  Without warning, iron fingers gripped her wrists, yanking her hands from her face. Startled, Bristol lifted her wet eyes.

  “You little fool!” a familiar voice hissed, the accent heavier in anger. “Is it your intention to run us aground before we even clear the harbor?”

  “You!” Bristol gasped. She stared into the flinty-gray eyes of the man called Jean Pierre. Her hands leaped to her throat as her mind made the connection. She’d met him in Morgan Caine’s company... Morgan Caine owned Salem’s largest lumber industry... the Challenger’s primary cargo was lumber. Of course.

  Hard angry eyes swept across her breasts and hips, lushly outlined in the freshening wind. He took her by the shoulders, his fingers bruising into her flesh. Jean Pierre turned her roughly out of the breeze. “Fool! There are over one hundred men on this ship, every one of whom is staring at you this minute! Pray they don’t mistake your idiocy for an invitation!” He glared the length of the ship and roared, “Back to work, you bastards! If you’ve energy to spare, Mr. Aykroyd will find a use for it!” His fingers curled on the hilt of his sword, and his face was thunderous.

  Bristol stammered, her cheeks coloring, “I’m sorry... I wasn’t thinking about—”

  “You weren’t thinking,” he stated flatly. “A condition which appears chronic with you, Mistress Adams!”

  Bristol stared. No hint of amusement softened his hard face; she saw the na
ked ruthlessness she’d suspected when first they met. She lifted her chin. However slight their acquaintance, at least his was a somewhat familiar face in a strange and unknown landscape. She swallowed fresh humiliation and tested his name. “Jean-Pierre?” she said haltingly.

  “Captain La Crosse,” he snapped. His voice was cold. “And the person responsible for delivering you in England in the same condition as I received you.” His stormy eyes swept her body. “I’ll thank you to cooperate in making that task as easy as possible.” He cupped his hands and shouted, “Mr. Aykroyd! Get these fool women below decks! Stupide!” He ran toward the forecastle, his steps light and certain across the rope-littered decks. “You, there, on the jib! Ten lashes if that canvas is too tight!”

  Bristol gaped after him, her face hot with embarrassment. She dared a longing gaze toward the receding shoreline, wishing with all her heart and soul that she stood there and not here. If she must share the voyage with a familiar face, why couldn’t it have been someone of pleasant associations?

  “Mistress Adams? I’ll thank ye to follow.”

  Bristol whirled, her skirts flying and her heart jumping to her mouth. The voice sounded so like Noah’s that for an instant she deceived herself it might be her father. Instead, she looked into the face of the ugliest man she’d ever seen. Thin wisps of white hair, stiff with salt, protruded from a grimy knit cap of uncertain color. Beneath the cap jutted a face so pocked and crisscrossed with scars that Bristol’s hand jerked to her mouth in revulsion, restraining an involuntary gulp. In addition to the scars, deep lines etched the man’s mouth and forehead, outlining a nose folded in some long-ago brawl.

  He waited patiently, accustomed to stares. “I be Mr. Aykroyd, mistress. Ye’re to come below.” He smiled then, the scars and welts pressing into one another. Bristol focused on the only feature in that face she didn’t find repellent. The bright blue eyes smiling out from his incredible face were surprisingly kind and gentle.

  Blinking rapidly, keeping her eyes fastened to his, Bristol responded with a hesitant smile of her own.