Salem's Daughter

by Maggie Osborne

  Bristol squeezed her eyes shut and dropped her head. So she wouldn’t have the time she needed. It had all been for nothing.

  Corwin finished and stepped around the cart where she could see his face.

  He fanned his hat in front of perspiring cheeks. “I’ll be directing the search,” he said, studying the, clear hot sky. “Telling the men where to dig. And where not to dig. I’d hate to tear up a fine place like Caleb’s farm any more than we have to. So...” His eyes swung from the sky and bored into hers. “So, if there’s a flowerbed or some special spot you wouldn’t want disturbed, I’d try to respect that.”

  Her heart jumped, and Bristol stared deeply into his steady eyes.

  “But now’s the time to say so.”

  Bristol bit her lip. If she was wrong... She swallowed a knot of uncertainty. The suspicion and mistrust had to end somewhere. “I... I’ve always favored the grassy rise beneath the oak tree, Mr. Corwin. I’d hate to think of it being dug up.” Emerald eyes beseeched.

  He nodded and settled his hat on the back of his head. “Sounds like a nice shady spot to sit and direct the operation,” he said, turning toward his horse.

  “Mr. Corwin!” He looked over his shoulder. “Thank you... for all that you...”

  He smiled and tipped his hat. “Once your pa did something for me,” he said. “Good luck to you.”

  Bristol braced herself as the cart bucked forward, raising clouds of choking red dust. There were still people in the world whom the madness had not touched, she thought gratefully. In the sheriff’s position, he could make the nightmare a little easier for those who passed through his hands.

  Nothing could ease the horror of Boston prison.

  34

  After five bone-jarring hours on the road, Bristol almost felt grateful when the cart turned into Prison Lane and rattled toward a wooden enclosure rising out of early darkness. The night was warm and moonlight shimmered across the waves in Boston harbor. Standing in the cart, Bristol yearned toward the distant water. Somewhere out there, across that gigantic sea, her Jean Pierre lived and breathed. Knowing it, thinking of him, gave her a tiny sliver of courage to cling to. She had known love, and if her life ended tomorrow, no one could take that from her. Jean Pierre had been the reality of her life; not this. As she watched the dark prison draw nearer, she prayed he would never learn her fate.

  The jail perched on a grassy hill outside of Boston Town. A cluster of log sheds formed the core, and around it lay a yard fenced by high wooden slats. Originally built to house no more than forty, now the prison swelled with nearly two hundred accused witches awaiting trial. Prison personnel could not cope with the sudden influx.

  Harried officials directed a daily building program, adding pens to the main enclosure as quickly as they could be thrown together. The makeshift pens were unsatisfactory, unwieldy, unsanitary, and difficult to police. Additional guards had been posted to oversee the pens, but they resisted patrolling the poorly lit enclosures. The men weren’t easy at guarding witches. God only knew what this conglomeration of evil might do to a man. They avoided contact with the hags and warlocks whenever possible.

  Consequently, the prisoners suffered an appalling lack of everyday necessities. They ate swill. None were healthy. All were filthy. Lice and dysentery were facts of everyday life. Fresh water had to be hauled from Boston and was considered a luxury. Sewer facilities were nonexistent.

  Bristol had heard the prison described as “a grave for the living,” and as the cart stopped and she stared around her in the dim light, she decided the description had been kind. A fetid stench assailed her nostrils, and a deep rancid layer of muck crusted the ground. Dark shapes lay wedged together in a ring around the inner enclosure; even witches had to sleep, but nothing said they needed better than dirt for a mattress, or had to have shelter. Moans sounded everywhere, and pleas for assistance, but the guards remained in the log sheds, refusing to respond.

  A weary man with hard eyes and a grim mouth met the cart and stared at Bristol by the light of a stained lantern. “Another one,” he stated sullenly.

  The cart driver stretched his neck and rubbed cramped muscles. “Count your blessings, Kingston, you coulda had three. The others went to Andover.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Kingston spit in the dirt. “This means some sorry sod has to stay up all night!” He glared at the driver as if this inconvenience was his fault.

  The driver shrugged. “Get her outta the cart, will you? I want to go home.”

  “So who doesn’t?” Kingston gripped Bristol’s arm and dragged her from the cart. He shoved her ahead of him toward one of the log sheds. “You got the papers on her?” he asked the driver. The driver tossed over a thick packet and rattled out the gate.

  Inside the log hut, a group of men sat in a circle drinking from battered mugs. They glanced up without interest as Kingston led Bristol past them and into a dark empty room. He placed a candle on the room’s earthen floor. “You’re to remain here for twenty-four hours,” he said, pushing her down into the dirt.

  Bristol licked dust from her lips. Her stomach growled. “Mr. Kingston?” she asked timidly.

  “What?” He frowned at her, about to close the door. Bristol noticed a peephole cut in the upper half.

  “May I please have a drink of water and could you untie my hands?”

  “No.” The door started to close.

  “Mr. Kingston!” He glared back into the room, angry now. “Please,” she begged. “Why am I in here?”

  “You all ask that, and you all know the answer. You do it to harass us!” He slammed the door.

  After a moment a wary eye appeared at the peephole, watching her. Bristol stared at it a moment, then looked away. Her mind raced, turning the question, trying to think of anything but thirst and hunger. Of course. Familiars. A familiar had to feed from the witch’s body once in each twenty-four-hour period. Part of jail processing was obviously to collect evidence for the trial. Bristol squirmed near the wall and leaned her spine against the logs. A twenty-four-hour rest would be wonderful; her eyes closed.

  Instantly the watching eye blinked out and a violent pounding erupted against the door. The eye reappeared. Each time Bristol’s head nodded toward her breast, the door shuddered beneath a shattering pounding noise. Sleeping was not allowed.

  The hours passed, and eventually she wished with all her heart for a familiar to appear. She ached all over and felt bone-weary. She wanted nothing more than to stretch out in the dirt and sleep. Forget everything and sleep. No sooner had the wish crossed her mind than the door crashed open and a man bolted into the room. He raced to a far corner and stared in triumph at a small brown spider. “Here it is!” he sang out.

  “So?” an indifferent voice called from the next room. “Kill it and go to bed. We’re sick of your complaints!”

  The man lifted his boot and ground the spicier into the dirt, with a shiver of fear. He snatched up his foot and rapidly examined himself to see if he’d acted before the familiar witched some part of his body into a hairy monstrosity. Weak with relief, he turned to Bristol and prodded her to her feet. He muttered to himself, “Off to the examination room, then the damned report, and then to bed.”

  This time she knew better than to risk anger by asking what the examination room was. The man shoved Bristol into a small room with a cot along one wall. He lifted his leg over the cot and kicked an old woman out of a whimpering slumber. “Here’s another one,” he said. “I’ll be just outside if you need help with her.”

  The old woman rubbed her eyes and nudged a bundle of rags sleeping beside her. Both women pulled to their feet, grumbling and carping at each other and Bristol. “Take your clothes off.”

  Mutely, heart thudding, Bristol turned to show her bound hands. One of them cut the ropes. Slowly she undressed, her face red and her eyes blunted.

  They examined her inch by inch. “Bend over.” Bristol did as they demanded, wishing God would strike her dead. The indignity, the hum
iliation of it, was more than she could bear. She wasn’t surprised when they found what they sought.

  “Look here,” one of them cackled, pointing to the faint ridges on Bristol’s back. “A familiar’s feeding tit if I ever saw one!”

  “Please, once I was whipped, that’s—”

  “Shut up.”

  Next they took a knife, sharpened to a fine thin point, and began pricking her all over. They started at her toes and worked up, raising fiery needles of pain. Bristol flinched and cried out and tried to twist away, but the strongest held her while the other dotted the knife point across her skin.

  Unable to resist, incapable of fighting them, she went limp. Her body sagged. Every sense felt deadened by exhaustion. Her mind seemed wrapped in cotton.

  “Here it is!” the old woman crowed. “See?” She touched Bristol’s hipbone with the knife point. Bristol didn’t react. Had she not been watching, Bristol wouldn’t have known the old woman pricked her. She decided they could have broken both legs at this point and she would have felt nothing.

  “That’s it, all right, the devil’s mark. Dead flesh.”

  Mercifully they put away the knife and threw her clothes at her. The younger of the two returned to the cot and rolled near the wall. The older one waited until Bristol dressed; then she kicked open the door. “She’s got it, all right,” she shouted at the man. “On the back and on the hip, just here.” She drew a circle on her own hip to show him.

  He nodded. “Write it up and I’ll be back.”

  The old woman shook her head. “Write it up yourself, you lazy slug. You know I can’t do letters.” She slammed the door.

  Muttering beneath his breath, the man jerked a lantern from a peg and gave Bristol a vicious kick out the door. She sprawled in the muck, curling into a ball and covering her head.

  “Get up,” he screamed. She scrambled to her feet, her eyes wide and frightened, and he shoved her through the darkness, down a lane of packed bodies, and out the gate. They marched through meadow grass and finally halted before one of the wooden pens. He unlocked the gate and hurled her through, locking it behind her. When his grumbling mutter faded, Bristol looked around.

  Beneath a starry, moon-bright sky, she saw row upon row of jammed sleeping bodies. The seeping ooze of a dung hill glittered at the end of the pen. The stink was unbelievable.

  “Bristol Adams?” a soft voice called nearby. “Bristol Adams Wainwright? Is it you?”

  “Aye,” Bristol answered in a loud whisper. A shape rose from the sleeping bodies. “Rebecca!” Bristol ran forward and dropped to her knees beside the old woman. Rebecca Nurse squeezed to one side and made room; then she pressed Bristol’s fingers.

  “I can’t say I’m glad to see you; not here.” The woman’s cheerful little face split into a thousand wrinkles around a smile. “Are you hungry?”

  Bristol nodded.

  “I’m afraid the water’s gone until tomorrow.” Rebecca lifted a filthy apron and rummaged in the pocket. She produced a crust of bread and a chunk of moldy cheese. “My granddaughter bribed the guards to get this in. I save it for newcomers. It isn’t much, and this is the last of it. But everyone’s so hungry after the familiar room. Were you in the full twenty-four hours?”

  “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” Bristol whispered loudly near Rebecca’s ear. She had to repeat it.

  Rebecca chuckled and patted Bristol’s hand. “At my age, a person doesn’t need much sleep. Besides, I’ll be sleeping plenty before too long.” She watched Bristol wolf down the food. Between bites, Bristol told of the empty room and the spider. Rebecca smiled. “That’s nothing. You are looking at the worst witch of all time. Oh, aye.” Her button eyes twinkled in the starry light. “When I went in, it started to rain—the last good rain we had before this dry spell. And every stray cat and dog and mouse and frog in Suffolk County wiggled into that room. All of them wringing wet and looking for a dry spot. Near scared the life out of that young man.” She shook her gray head and chuckled.

  That Rebecca could retain any good humor at all in this foul place astonished Bristol. Soon, however, the smile faded from those wrinkled old lips, and Rebecca spoke of sadder events. Old Goody Osburn had died in the prison. Others they both knew were very ill. Elizabeth Proctor feared for her unborn child, as the food was poor and maggoty and the water often went bad before fresh was hauled to the prison. Rebecca feared little Dorcas Good’s mind had gone; the child suffered greatly. She’d heard rumors that torture was practiced in the men’s pens, and both men and women were kept chained. Rebecca lifted her skirt and showed Bristol her own shackles.

  In the morning two guards arrived and locked iron cuffs around Bristol’s ankles, the cuffs attached to a length of chain soldered to eight-pound iron balls. Bristol could walk only by bending and carrying the balls. Using this method, she could hobble about, bent at the waist. She soon discovered that trying to drag the balls only flayed the ankles.

  By daylight, the pen was hideous. A square of fenced misery and offal. That humans could survive such conditions was a staggering idea. But they did, and Bristol gritted her teeth and vowed she would too.

  On Rebecca’s advice, Bristol claimed an area of fence. When guards dragged away a woman there, Bristol slid immediately into the narrow spot, marking it as her own by tearing a scrap of skirt and nailing it to the fence with a sliver of wood. The benefits of a fence position were instantly obvious. It was difficult for the sightseers standing on benches behind the fence to hurl refuse at anyone directly beneath the fence. Also, the wooden slats provided a backrest and offered shelter from a boiling afternoon sun. Those without a fence place sat in the middle of the compound and served as target for the sun and curious onlookers. These women glared at Bristol, angry and resentful that a newcomer had beat them to the fence spot. Bristol returned their stares and thanked God for Rebecca.

  Rebecca proved invaluable by helping Bristol and other newcomers adjust to the hardships of prison life. If the food wouldn’t stay on their stomachs, Rebecca teased them about being too fat. When the water didn’t arrive on schedule, Rebecca suggested a rain dance and coaxed a smile. As layer upon layer of dirt and mud accumulated on Bristol’s skin and clothing, Rebecca congratulated her on looking like a fresh arrival no longer.

  In July, Rebecca Nurse was hanged. Along with Sarah Good and three others.

  Bristol spent the day in quiet prayer and hopelessness. She leaned against the fence and stared at the iron cuffs banding her ankles. Rebecca Nurse dead. How did rational minds accept such an atrocity? Her eyes strayed to Rebecca’s fence spot, already claimed by a new haggard face. But Bristol saw Rebecca there, and her throat ached.

  By the first week in September, Bristol came to understand none of them would leave the prison alive. Those who did not die here, died at the end of a rope.

  Five more had been hanged in August, including John Proctor. Elizabeth Proctor escaped hanging only by reason of pregnancy; she’d been tried, and when the baby was born, she would hang.

  Despite the hangings, the likelihood of dying in prison was far greater than dangling at the end of a noose. The trials progressed slowly. At the present rate of trial sittings, Bristol calculated it would be years before the pens cleared of witches.

  Looking over the crowded desperate women, Bristol swallowed hard and wondered if she could survive these conditions for years. In her heart, she doubted it. Summer had been appalling; winter would be deadly. That they had managed to endure the blistering summer was credit to the hardiness of humanity.

  The pens were open sewers, an invitation to rats and maggots and giant mosquitoes that raised welts the size of shillings. Breathing the foul stench burned nostrils and lungs. All thought of modesty disappeared within hours; no privacy existed of any kind. Two buckets of sour water were allowed every other day and vanished instantly. No one bothered to give the women provisions for monthly needs; they caught the curse and had no way to blot the flow or clean themselves. Lice foraged in hair and
clothing. They fought like animals for moldy bread and scraps a dog would not have touched.

  When rain fell, everyone rejoiced—for a short time. They stood in the compound and scrubbed weeks of crust and filth from their bodies and tried to wash the clothes they wore. Then they lay down in the mud to sleep, and it began again, the cycle of dirt and bugs and dysentery and hopelessness.

  Quickly they became the animals most of the populace believed them to be. When they spoke of it, and they did endlessly, they felt anger and bewilderment at their treatment, at the terror in eyes which slid away from direct contact. Yet, sometimes they stared at each other and saw what others saw—and fear leaped in their own eyes as well. They’d entered these gates as clean, responsible human beings and had become ragged hollow-eyed creatures of hell, willing to claw a neighbor for a scrap of food or a bit of space. Any could have served as model for a sketch of the worst features associated with witches.

  “Care for company?”

  Bristol looked over her shoulder as Divinity Cooper lowered her iron shackles with a sigh. Hurriedly Bristol buried a bone she’d stolen from the community pot. “Aye, sit down.” She patted flat the earth next to the fence where she hid her treasures and settled her back against the wooden slats. “Is there anything new?” It was the standard greeting.

  “No.” The standard answer. Divinity crossed her legs and settled carefully within the perimeters of Bristol’s rectangle of space. A skirt hem on a neighboring patch was enough to instigate a scratching, howling fight. Divinity closed her eyes and let the autumn sun warm a muddy face.

  Guiltily Bristol fought with herself. Should she offer to share the bone or not? Three weeks ago Divinity had nursed Bristol through an attack of dysentery... but Bristol’s stomach felt as if it gnawed itself. She’d keep the bone. She sighed. “Divinity, I have a bone; come back tonight.”

  Divinity smiled and nodded, knowing the battle Bristol had lost; they all waged such wars. “Thank you,” she said formally. “Hester Ellison told me they tortured two more men yesterday. Tied their necks to their heels until blood ran out of their noses and mouths.”