Salem's Daughter

by Maggie Osborne

  The following day, Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne, distinguished members of the upper house of the legislature, arrived at the village meetinghouse to examine the accused. The makeshift courtroom was packed. People jammed the pews and lined the walls and shivered on the outside steps.

  As family of an afflicted girl, Bristol and Caleb had no trouble gaining entrance. Finding a seat was another matter. They crammed into a center aisle and stood packed tightly, but with a better view than they’d first expected. If Bristol held her neck just so, she could see between the heads in front. The scarlet robes of the examiners lay in clear sight, and she had a fair view of the stools where the girls would sit. It looked as though she’d have a partial lane of sight for the accused.

  John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin solemnly took their scats behind the high dais, and their sober faces stared over the packed room. At the proper moment, they nodded and armed guards escorted the girls to a spot just below the dais. Bristol noted with surprise that the ranks of afflicted girls had now swollen to include Ann Putnam Senior, Mary Walcot, and two young married women she knew but slightly.

  Conscious of numerous staring eyes, the afflicted girls filed importantly to their row of stools and demurely seated themselves. Bristol thought they could easily have been mistaken for a female choir sitting gracefully and waiting for the moment they would be called on to perform. All were neatly combed, dressed in their Sabbath best, and they sat with hands folded primly in their laps.

  Bristol released a silent breath of relief. She’d lain awake most of the night fearing today’s examinations might turn into a debacle. And she didn’t want Charity subjected to that. Regardless of today’s outcome, Bristol whispered a prayer of grateful thanks that Hannah was not here to see Charity held to public inspection. It would have embarrassed and humiliated Hannah.

  One of the guards roped off an area to serve as the prisoner’s dock, and the judges appointed Goodman Cheever as court recorder. Then the examiners pronounced all in readiness, and Judge Hathorne nodded for the guards to bring out the first prisoner. Everyone craned his neck, and the girls glanced up with flushed faces and excited eyes.

  The guards escorted Sarah Good into the dock. She stared about her, an ill-tempered expression tugging down the corners of her mouth.

  All hell broke loose.

  Screaming. Shrieking. Howling. Falling. Fits and frothing. Hysteria and convulsions.

  Abigail Williams shrieked and fell on her knees, clutching her throat. Her face contorted, and her tongue burst from her mouth. Her blue eyes bulged. “She’s choking me! Make her stop! Save me! Help!”

  Ann Putnam Junior stared at Abigail’s crimson, strangling face, and she too streamed. “Aye! Oh, make her stop!” Ann’s angelic face froze in horror, and she cried, “Oh! Oh! Tell her to stop! Please make her stop! The witch pinches me all over with fiery claws!” Ann toppled from her stool and rolled on the floor, desperately beating at an invisible tormentor with both small fists.

  Several of the girls crawled behind their stools, hiding and wailing and sobbing frantically.

  Ann Putnam Senior jerked to her feet and quivered in violent shudders. A mask of fear and loathing twisted her face. “Now she’s floating near the rafters!” Her shaking finger soared, and every eye stared up at nothing. “Oh! Oh, look! She’s flying down to hurt us!” Ann Senior covered her head and crashed to the floor, writhing and screaming.

  The others took up the cry, howling and shrieking and crawling on the floor. They yelled and wept and screamed and beat at themselves and each other. Some dared terrified peeks between their fingers at an astonished Sarah Good; then they fell over in fresh agonies.

  John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin stood behind the dais and peered down at the frenzy with openmouthed amazement. They could scarcely believe what their eyes saw and ears heard. No one could. The girls in full cry were shocking, horrifying.

  Jonathan Corwin’s mouth worked, and he pointed at Sarah Good, but the noise was so overpowering no one heard what he yelled. John Hathorne purpled in the face, attempting to shout above the unbelievable din. Finally a guard touched Sarah with the tip of his lance and directed her attention to the judges. She read their lips: “Look away! Turn your eyes away from them!”

  Sarah’s mouth clamped in a line of disgust; then she turned slowly, crossed her arms on her chest and stared at a distant wall.

  Almost instantly the girls quieted, and a collective sigh of gratitude blew through the room. Everyone stared. The girls lay about the planks like discarded dolls tossed by a careless hand. Nearly all were drawn into torturous postures. A few continued to weep quietly, but aside from an occasional moan or isolated yelp, they were still.

  A solid block of faces swung from the stricken girls to Sarah Good. Sarah stood in a posture of supreme contempt, her stony eyes on the far wall.

  Judge Hathorne cleared his throat and straightened his scarlet robe. “Look at the children,” he commanded in a strained tone. He clearly hated the idea of a repetition, but nothing could be left to chance—he had to be certain what caused the hysteria.

  Sarah shrugged and turned, her glance full of disdain.

  Again the cacophony erupted. Screams, tears, howls, and violent thrashing across the floor. Some shook in brutal spasms, others turned rigid as stone. They flopped about the planks like fish out of water.

  The judge cupped his hands around his mouth. “Look away!” he shouted. “Look away from them!”

  Toward the middle of the meetinghouse, Bristol lifted her hands and pressed them over her ears. All around her, others did the same. She didn’t dare took at Sarah Good for fear a scream would burst from her own lips. A need to scream seemed to build inside, and she had only to scan the crowd around her to see others feeling the same pressures she did.

  Standing on tiptoe, Bristol searched the melee for Charity. Charity sat on the floor, her feet straight before her, her hands buried in her carroty hair. Charity’s cap had disappeared, and her hair tumbled loose around her face. She might have been a statue carved of white marble. Or a mute, oblivious of the spectacle around her. She didn’t move, didn’t blink. The only sign of life was tears streaming from her wide, staring eyes and dropping in wet circles on her collar. It looked as if she’d been struck deaf and dumb.

  Eventually the judges restored a ragged order and seated themselves behind the dais. Jonathan Corwin blinked repeatedly, as if trying to rouse himself from a dream. He opened his lips, then shook his head and deferred to Hathorne.

  Judge Hathorne drew a breath and folded his hands before him. He leveled a measuring glare at Sarah Good. “Sarah Good, what familiar do you keep?” Everyone knew witches kept familiars to do their foul work. And everyone whispered this was a fine opening question.

  “None,” Sarah spit, her voice as waspish as her face. No hint of humility bowed her head. She met the judges’ eyes with a bold gaze.

  “Have you made a contract with the devil?”

  Sarah laughed. “Of course not! What an idiotic question!”

  Judge Hathorne glared. “Why do you hurt these girls?”

  “Girls? Didn’t I see Ann Putnam Senior and a couple more who aren’t ‘girls’? A couple of them bitches are almost as old as I am—they aren’t girls no more!”

  Hathorne ignored her outburst. “Why do you hurt these girls?” he repeated.

  Sarah’s lip curled. “I don’t hurt them. You see me standing here, don’t you? Did you see me go anywhere near them?” Her eves flashed. “This is all ridiculous. I scorn it!”

  “Did your shape torment them?”

  “My shape?” Sarah laughed again, a nasty sound. “The only shape I got is the one you’re looking at!”

  Angry, Judge Hathorne leaned over the dais and directed the girls to look upon the prisoner and determine if this was the person who hurt them. They screamed and covered their eyes and refused to look.

  “I order you to look at Sarah Good!” Judge Hathorne roared.

&nbs
p; Fearfully they peeked. And fell shrieking into each other’s arms, sobbing with pain. “Aye!” they chorused. “She hurts us. Oh, make her stop!”

  Sarah looked away with a snort of contempt, and matrons passed among the girls, pulling them up on their stools. Judge Hathorne stared hard at Sarah Good. “Do you still deny what you do? Tell us the truth! Why do you torment these poor children?”

  “Children, my arse!” Sarah glared at the judges. “I don’t torment anyone.”

  The judge lifted his hands. “Then who does?”

  “There was two more arrested besides me,” Sarah muttered sullenly. “Ask them.” She scratched her arm, and immediately the girls set up a howl, grabbing their arms and screaming that Sarah Good’s shape scratched them.

  When he could again be heard, Judge Hathorne persisted stubbornly. “Who torments the children?”

  “You know so much,” Sarah yelled spitefully, “you tell me!”

  “There’ll be respect in this courtroom,” the judge admonished sharply. His narrow eyes swung from Sarah to the guards, making his point. “Now, tell us who torments these children!”

  Sarah sighed and shrugged. “Well, it isn’t me. Maybe that stingy old bitch Goody Osburn.”

  The crowd gasped at hearing Osburn accused by one of her own kind. No one doubted Sarah Good’s guilt; they saw it clearly.

  The questioning continued, relentless and stubborn. And aside from occasional outbursts from the girls, a pin could have been heard, had one dropped. The audience did not cough or shuffle. They gaped and listened and scarcely dared to breathe.

  Judge Hathorne probed, and Sarah Good responded with abuse that worsened as the hours passed. She began to understand the full extent of her peril, and her answers lagged, rambling through a litany of complaint and self-pity.

  At last came the conclusive test. Judge Hathorne leaned over the dais, his face weary. “Sarah Good. Can you recite the Lord’s Prayer without faltering? Perfectly?”

  The packed room sucked in their breath and strained to hear Sarah’s recital.

  “Of course I can. What a stupid question!”

  “Then do it!”

  Sarah sighed. “If I must, I will.” She paused and drew her brows together in an ugly frown of concentration.

  “What? Speak louder!”

  “Yea, though I walk through... let’s see... I will fear no...” She stopped and frowned at the planks. “I can do it!... Our Father what are in heaven... no... Our Father who be in heaven...” Beads of sweat rose on Sarah’s furrowed brow. As well as anyone, she knew no witch could repeat the Lord’s Prayer without error.

  “When is the last time you dared defile the meetinghouse by attending Sabbath?” Judge Hathorne’s face fired with a victorious flush.

  Sarah wiped her palms on a dirty skirt. Her eyes flicked this way and that. “None of the village bitches give me and Dorcas anything good enough to wear to meeting. We can’t go in rags, can we?”

  Triumphant, Judge Hathorne banged his gavel. Sarah Good was dragged away and bound over for trial.

  Bristol and Caleb followed a silent crowd through the slushy lane and into Ingersoll’s tavern for lunch and hot cider. Once inside, the voices came to life, buzzing over the large warm room. The Wainwrights found a small table near a larger one where the girls were fed trenchers of stew and mugs of steaming ale.

  Bristol and Caleb faced each other over the table, listening to the shouted opinions filling the tavern. “Good riddance!” sounded again and again. Few would be sorry to see Salem Village rid of its beggar. “I just knew it!” someone stated loudly. “Why, I remember once when she came begging at our door...” Everyone had a story to prove Sarah Good’s guilt as a witch.

  Bristol abandoned an effort to force down the food on her trencher. She looked into Caleb’s tight, worried face. “You don’t agree with this, do you?” she whispered, after checking to be certain no one could overhear.

  Troubled, Caleb stared at his wife. “Do you? Can you believe in two Sarah Goods? One standing before your eyes, another as an invisible fiend choking and torturing?” He shook his head, and his jaw clenched. “I can’t. I think Sarah goes to prison not for witchery, but for begging an existence at the doors in this village.”

  Shocked, Bristol gasped. “Caleb, you can’t mean that!”

  He leaned over the table and lowered his voice. “Look at them.” He inclined his head toward the long table of laughing girls. “Do they look tormented to you? I think not. They’re having a grand time! In their whole lives, no one has taken seriously a single word from their mouths. Now everyone in this community hangs on each phrase like it was gospel! No queen was ever as lofty as Charity when those men came to take her statement. You saw her... she enjoyed it! She loved having them eager to hear everything she said.”

  Bristol blinked at her hands. If she were totally honest with herself, she’d have to admit she’d experienced the same uneasy feeling as Caleb when she listened to Charity give her statement. The entire business confused and frightened Bristol.

  A bell rang summoning them back to the meetinghouse for the afternoon session. But before leaving Ingersoll’s, Bristol stopped at the girls’ table and leaned over Charity. “Are you all right?” she whispered anxiously.

  Excitement blazed in Charity’s eyes. “Did you see us, Brissy?” she inquired breathlessly. “Did you see how the witch made me dumb?”

  “I saw!” Abigail laughed. Immediately she mimicked Charity. Abigail clutched her hair in both hands and made her face go blank and staring. All the girls laughed. Mary Walcot banged her mug in appreciation and agreed Charity had looked just like that.

  Charity turned back to Bristol with a smile. Her face glowed. “I hope you have a good place to see from,” she said.

  “I... we’ll wait for you when it’s over,” Bristol croaked. Her lips felt stiff. Stumbling, she caught up with Caleb, and they entered the meetinghouse.

  When the girls had been led inside and settled on their stools, Tituba followed the guards into the dock. She created a sensation.

  First, little Betty Parris had to be restrained from running to hug her cherished Tituba. Seeing this, some immediately doubted Tituba had hurt anyone. Reverend Parris led his daughter from the courtroom, his face flaming with embarrassment. Betty did not reappear.

  During the delay, it was noted the antics of the afflicted girls lacked the power of the morning’s demonstration. Some whispered the girls’ lunch sat heavy on their stomachs; others wondered if Tituba might be innocent.

  “Why do you hurt the children?”

  “I don’t hurt the children. I love the children. They try to make me, but I don’t do it.” Tituba’s chocolate eyes stayed carefully away from the girls. She knew the procedure.

  “Who tries to force you?”

  “The man who made me sign the book.”

  Pandemonium broke across the courtroom. Tituba’s statement was tantamount to a confession, and instantly a chill fear charged the atmosphere. The girls went berserk with screaming and convulsions; their eyes rolled in their heads, their tongues burst from their lips. Several women in the audience fainted and had to be carried out. Everyone’s heart hammered wildly.

  Tituba continued. Aye, she admitted signing a contract with the devil; aye, she’d attended witches’ covens. She served a black man that appeared sometimes as a hog or a large dog, and sometimes as a red or black rat. She attended ritual gatherings by riding a stick through the air.

  Judge Hathorne looked ill. The room was still as death. “Do you hurt the children?”

  Tituba’s wounded eyes leaped in her dark face. “No, sir. I never did. I love the children, I swear it.” She appealed to a stunned audience, who dropped their eyes in fright as her gaze passed over them. “I didn’t do it. They said to hurt the children, or they’d hurt me. But I wouldn’t. No, sir!”

  “Ann Junior testified someone tormented her with a knife last night. Did your shape try to cut off her head?”


  “Ann?” Horrified, Tituba wrung her hands and shook her head. “No! No! Osburn and Good, they said to do it, but I said no.”

  The crowd gasped and swayed. At last it was confirmed; a confessed witch named the others.

  Judge Hathorne glanced at Goodman Cheever, who wrote furiously. “Are you getting all this?” Goodman Cheever nodded without looking up. Judge Hathorne studied his notes and returned to the witch. As much as possible, he avoided meeting her eyes. “Did you pinch Elizabeth Hubbard this morning hard enough to leave bruises?”

  “A dark man’s shape brought her to me and made me pinch her. I didn’t want to.”

  “Who does these terrible things—is it you or the shape in which you serve your evil master?”

  “My shape. Not me; my shape.”

  Judge Hathorne mopped his head and glanced at Jonathan Corwin. Corwin scribbled notes. Hathorne continued. “Does Sarah Good, whom you have named a fellow witch, does she have a familiar?”

  “Aye. She has a yellow bird who sucks between her fingers.”

  “Does Sarah Osburn have a familiar?”

  “Osburn has a yellow dog. Abigail Williams saw the creature. It has wings and a woman’s head, and it turns into Goody Osburn. She has another hairy thing with only two legs. You can ask Abigail.”

  Abigail Williams confirmed it.

  “Did you hurt the Currins’ baby?”

  “Goody Good and Goody Osburn told me they hurt the Currin baby, but I did not. No, sir.”

  The damning testimony went on with continuous outbreaks from the girls. At Tituba’s confession, their sluggishness had disappeared, and they exhibited genuine terror, cringing and screaming if her glance grazed past them. Several bowed their heads and wept and appeared to be frozen in trance states.