Witch Woman

by Jeanette Baker

  "No." She pushed the crystal back into her handbag, slammed the armoire door and backed away. Still, the pulsing force pulled at her. "Stop," she shouted, covering her ears. Her heart felt tight in her chest. Her hands. They looked small, so small. "Please stop. I can't do this." They were her last words before the dark settled, the world shifted and the shadows closed in.

  Chapter 26

  Salem, Massachusetts, 1692

  "Margaret, where are you?" The Jacobs' house behind her, Judith March stood at the edge of the clearing, an expression of anxiety on her small, serious face. Her mother had clearly explained the importance of not losing sight of Margaret when she'd charged Judith with her care. Now her sister was gone and what made it all the worse was that Judith had no idea how she'd lost sight of her. One minute Margaret was following her down the path toward the bog and the next, she was gone, vanished, as if she'd never been. Judith was especially cross because it wasn't the first time Margaret had played this disappearing game. "We are leaving," she called out. "Unless you come out, Mother will leave you here with Goody Jacobs."

  Apparently the threat was enough. Margaret materialized from behind the trunk of a maple tree, her hair flame-red against the golden backdrop of leaves. She faced her sister, holding one hand behind her back. Judith stood, hands on her hips, a small but mighty termagant, in the face of her sister's misbehavior. "You know what Mother said. Put it down before she sees you."

  Resistance flickered, momentarily, across the younger girl's features, disappearing into a mask of acceptance. She knelt down and carefully opened her palm. A tiny field mouse scampered to freedom. She watched it run away before turning back to her sister.

  Judith shook her head. "Why do you do it, Margaret? You know how Mother feels?"

  "I wanted to feel it," the child said simply, running past her older sister into the house to bury her face in Abigail's skirts.

  "What is it, love?" asked her mother.

  Margaret kept her face hidden.

  Over her head, Abigail looked at Judith. "Is everything all right?"

  The child nodded.

  "T'was good of you to come, Abigail," said Goody Jacobs.

  The words were spoken grudgingly, falsely.

  "You are very welcome, Jane," replied Abigail. "God's blessing to you and to the children." She picked up her basket and took Margaret's hand. "Come along, children. 'T'is time."

  She breathed a sigh of relief when they passed from the clearing into the meadow, brilliant with color in the cool autumn sunlight. Allowing the children to run ahead, she breathed in the herbal scents of wild sorrel, onion and sage, lifting her face to a cloudless, iron-blue sky, reveling in her solitude. For two weeks she'd cared for the Jacobs' family and was sorely tried by the duration of her duty. They were a sour group, the Jacobs, rarely smiling, the children cowed and furtive, Jane suspicious, her husband preoccupied with his crops, the charter of the colony and the fractious bickering of Salem Village. It was good to be going home, to the freedom of her own hearth, to hear her children laugh, to share conversation with John. She missed him. The thought brought a smile to her lips. It was not a bad thing to miss ones husband.

  "Mistress March. It is Mistress March, is it not?"

  The voice startled her. Quickly she turned to see Salem's minister, Reverend Hawthorne, hurrying her way. Schooling her features into a mask of polite surprise, she waited until he'd reached her side. "Good morning, Reverend. I did not expect company. From where did you come?"

  "From the Woodcock house. Hannah is feeling poorly. She suspects witchcraft and I agree."

  Abigail's lip curled. "I am sure she does."

  "You do not share our suspicions?"

  "I do not."

  The reverend's brows drew together. "Why is that, Mistress March?"

  "I doubt that Hannah Woodcock is of such importance that witches visit her with the frequency she claims. Rather they would haunt those more likely to welcome them."

  "You seem to know a great deal of witches, Mistress."

  Abigail shook her head. "Nay, but I know Hannah Woodcock and Anne Putnam as well as the victims of their loose tongues."

  "You are referring to Rebecca Nurse."

  "I am."

  "It would have gone easier on her if she had confessed."

  "She was innocent," Abigail retorted. "What would you have had her confess?"

  "Surely the magistrate has more evidence of her black magic than you do."

  She could not keep the bitterness from her voice. "I was her friend."

  "Abigail." Reverend Hawthorne stopped in front of her. "I have known you for many years. I have great affection for you and the selfless care you provide for the citizens of Salem. 'T'is why I speak to you this way. Harken to me now. You do yourself a tremendous disservice by your championship of this witch. Rebecca Nurse was tried and hanged. There is no more to be said. For your sake and the sake of your family, speak no more in her defense."

  Abigail stared at the ground, her mutinous thoughts evident on her face.

  "There are those who are jealous of you. When your name comes up, and it does more frequently now, John and I have spoken for you. There may be a time when it does no good. Think of your children and exercise wisdom."

  He was a fanatic, as were Reverends Parris and Mather. She hated them and their sanctimonious preaching. But the once so rare and now ever-present bubble of fear hovering at the base of her throat prevented her from voicing her thoughts. It saved her from immediate condemnation. Reverend Hawthorne did not look kindly upon defiance. So, instead she looked down, keeping her own council. She swallowed. "I thank you for your support, Reverend, and I will consider on your advice." Nodding, he resumed his pace beside her. "John was at Meeting last Sabbath, but I did not see you or your daughters."

  "I was with Goody Jacobs. She gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, and was slow to recover."

  He smiled. "After three daughters, Samuel should be pleased. You have done well, Abigail."

  She couldn't help laughing. "I only assisted. Jane is the one who should be congratulated. Her lying in was difficult."

  "The pain of labor is God's curse for Eve's betrayal. It should be welcomed."

  The words left her lips before she could stop them. "You would never say such a thing were you a woman."

  He sighed. "You are contrary, Abigail. That burr in your nature works against you." He changed the subject. "Where are Judith and Margaret?"

  Her annoyance evaporated. She'd forgotten her children. Furious with herself, she quickened her pace. "They ran ahead. I must find them."

  Reaching for her basket, he matched her stride, saying no more until they rounded the bend in the path. Just ahead were the children. He opened his mouth to speak and then stopped, his feet rooted to the earth in astonishment. Abigail froze, her mind shutting down, refusing to believe, slowing the scene before her to better understand. Judith, had ignored her mother's warnings. The children were seated on the ground. On Judith's arm sat a hawk, a bird of prey, wings settled, head cocked. Beside her, on Margaret's shoulder, rested a sparrow at peace, unafraid of the giant bird twenty times its size. Two rabbits played at the children's feet and a hive of bees swarmed around them all, a halo of gold, harming them not, protecting them. Bees in the crisp cold of an October morning.

  Abigail glanced at Reverend Hawthorne. It would be too much to hope that he didn't see clearly, didn't understand or accept the truth played out before his very eyes.

  She had to stop it, immediately, before it was too late. "Judith," she shouted, "Margaret, come here at once."

  In unison they turned, her children. Margaret smiled. She was too young yet to count the price of her innocent carelessness. Judith knew more than her sister. She recognized Reverend Hawthorne. Her cheeks paled. Fear widened her eyes.

  "I have never seen—" the Reverend began, "I did not believe—" He stopped, unable to finish his thought and stared at the scene before him.

  Abigail fe
lt it first. Something stirred in the air, an unsettling, a sigh of wind, a flurry of leaves and the sky darkened with the buzz and drone and the beating wings of insects in flight. Over the heads of the children, the bees gathered, thousands and thousands more, forming a canopy. Then, as if in consensus, with one mind, they passed over the children, the birds and Abigail. With stingers positioned, they attacked Reverend Hawthorne, attaching themselves to every inch of exposed skin until his shrieks turned to wails and then to whimpers and finally, to silent gasping heaves as he lay spent on the ground fighting against the burning pain. Only then did they leave him, as quickly as they had come, rising into the air, disappearing into golden motes of light as if they had never been.

  For the space of a minute, shock immobilized Abigail. Then she recovered. Feverishly, she lifted the hem of her skirt and began to tear it into strips. "Hurry," she called out to her children, choking back the sobs rising in her throat. "Soak these rags in the creek. Don't wring them out, and hurry."

  Dutifully, the girls raced to the tiny flow of running water, doused the linen strips and raced back to their mother who was scraping stingers from the inflamed face, neck and hands of the minister. Working quickly, ignoring the tears silvering her cheeks, Abigail squeezed water on the dry leaves of the plantain she was never without, pounded them and formed a paste. Then she smeared it over the raw skin, settled the cool rags over the wounds, closed her eyes and forced herself to think. She had acted instinctively, with no other thought than to save his life. But, what if he lived? He would speak of what he had seen. He would cry out against Judith and Margaret. They would be taken away, imprisoned, tested by the witch finder. If he died, no one would be the wiser.

  Tears formed beneath her eyelids. Her gift was not meant to take lives, only to heal them.

  Opening her eyes, she looked at her daughters, at their sweet faces, Margaret's coppery hair, Judith's blue-gray eyes. Their trust in her was complete, and yet they were so young. They would speak of this day and then her deed would be for naught.

  Wetting her lips she felt his forehead. It burned beneath her hand. They were as far away from the Jacobs' cabin as they were from the village. Perhaps, despite her efforts, the Reverend Hawthorne's time was at hand. "Take Margaret. Run to the village," she told Judith. "Tell your father to come with help for Reverend Hawthorne. Tell him he has fallen ill." She looked them full in the face, first one and then the other. "Tell him not what you saw. Do you understand?"

  The child nodded, sensing, without question, what must be done. Abigail watched until their slight bodies disappeared into the rays of pure light that had spread out over the meadow. Then she sat back to wait, concentrating on the sounds of the sky, the cry of a coot, the warble of doves, the rustle of leaves. She tried to pray, but the words wouldn't come.

  Abigail had no idea how long she waited on that morning that would forever remain with her. Keeping the rags cold and wet, the fullness of her thoughts kept her occupied. It occurred to her that although the meadowlands were relatively safe, sending two small children nearly three miles to the village on their own was dangerous. Perhaps some mishap had befallen them. She remembered the painted face of the natives she'd seen in the woods the morning Margaret was born and shuddered. But what choice did she have, other than to leave Samuel Hawthorne to die? Perhaps he still would, despite her efforts. If so, she would not mourn him.

  The sun was directly overhead by the time John and two men from the village arrived with a cart and horses. Unbelievably, the Reverend still breathed. Abigail sat in the back of the cart beside her husband and the motionless body of the reverend.

  "How did it happen?" John asked.

  She was prepared for the question.

  "The bees attacked him," she said simply. "I know not why I was spared. Perhaps there was an odor upon him. It was over so quickly."

  "Where were the children?"

  She forced herself to meet her husband's eyes directly. "They ran ahead." She took a terrible risk by leaving out what Reverend Hawthorne would surely report. But perhaps his words would be accepted as the ramblings of a man not right in the head after such an ordeal. What she knew without doubt was that she could never explain to John about the birds or the terrible, terrible intent of the bees. "Where are the girls now?"

  "My mother has them. I told her I would collect them before supper."

  They were silent the rest of the way home. Abigail watched as Goodman Crane and Tucker helped John lift Reverend Hawthorne up the stairs of her home. She wished it could be otherwise, but the man was unmarried. There was no one else to nurse him.

  Later, after she'd sponged him, applied more plantain paste and aloe vera and changed his dressings, she saw John out the door.

  "Will he live?" he asked.

  "I don't know."

  "It would not go well for us if he dies here."

  "I would give anything for him to be elsewhere, but where?"

  John shook his head. "These have been difficult years for us with the Indian attacks, the spotting disease and crop failures."

  "You did not mention witchcraft."

  "That goes without saying. Witchcraft hysteria has taken over. 'T'is ridiculous, these girls who tremble and weep, bark like dogs and fall down in feints. They should be beaten."

  Abigail stared at him. John was rarely bitter.

  He collected himself. "I meant to tell you earlier. Jane Jacobs' twins are dead. They were too small, she claims, and could not survive the cold."

  Abigail's mouth dropped. She wanted to scream, to cry out, 'T'is impossible. They were healthy babies, properly filled out in the two weeks she'd cared for them. Only this morning, the tiny girl, Honor, they'd called her, had smiled for the first time. What in the name of heaven could have happened in so short a time?

  But she said nothing because she knew. Jane Jacobs had assured herself that the devil's mark, as she'd called it, would never rest upon her children, either of them, not the small boy Abigail had blown life into, nor the girl, hearty and hale and born first. She'd killed them, her own children, taken their lives as surely and easily as if they'd been nothing more than vermin to be cleaned out and disposed of.

  She sat down at the table, her hands over her mouth. How could she bare it? How could she stay here and raise her daughters with people who did this? She thought of Reverend Hawthorne upstairs in the big bed with curtains drawn. Perhaps the choice would be taken from her, and sooner than she imagined.

  Chapter 27

  Maggie heard the pounding on the door. She felt the vibrations cross the floor and travel up through her feet. Moving her arms was difficult. Moving her legs was impossible. The grogginess consumed her, weighting her head, keeping it pressed against the cushions. She should answer the door. Someone wanted to come in, Straining against gravity, she attempted to raise her arms, lift her head, open her eyes, to no avail.

  Dark Salem pulled her back to watch, an unwilling voyeur, and a participant, too. "No," she called out weakly. "Enough. Please, enough."

  * * *

  Salem, Massachusetts, 1692

  Margaret wanted her mother. She had awakened suddenly, jerked from the warmth of sleep and the comfort of Judith's inert body lying beside her, to instant awareness of her need. She stared at the ceiling, the beams foreign and unfamiliar in the darkness. She wasn't prone to nightmares or even dreams. She had never been awake, alone, in the entire memory of her short life. She wanted her mother. But to risk crawling over her sister, to find the stairs and her parents' bedroom, in the black of night, took a great mustering of courage.

  Something was brewing. She felt it, the humming in her small, birdlike bones, the energy, the force field she couldn't stop or even run from. Sensing its danger, she stiffened against it with all the strength and will of a child old for her years. Change was moving ever nearer, before she was ready, change impossible to stop, change that would turn her life upside down. She wanted her mother, desperately this time, enough to brave the journey a
cross her sister's body and down the dark stairs.

  She rolled to the foot of the bed and had just swung one leg over when she heard the footsteps, human footsteps, marching forward in her direction. She listened carefully. There was more than one, more than two. Margaret hadn't yet mastered her numbers, but she knew there were more than two. Whoever they were marched silently, purposefully, with no need to speak. She sat on the bed, straddled, frozen in place, not knowing what to do. Then she heard the pounding on the door. Whimpering, she clutched her sister's leg. Judith woke instantly and sat up. "What is it?" she whispered.

  Margaret laid her finger against her lips. Judith listened.

  The voices were inside the house and they were angry. She recognized her mother's voice. It sounded different, higher, fearful.

  "Stay here," Judith whispered, climbing from the bed and tiptoeing to the top of the stairs.

  Ignoring her, Margaret followed, curling into her sister's back, tucking her nightgown beneath her toes. She didn't understand the condemning words, but she understood the tone and the anger.

  Judith sat back on her heels and frowned, her face tight with fear for her mother. She was old enough to understand the word witch. She knew why they had come. There were many of them and Abigail was only one.

  Minutes passed. Voices continued to rise and still Abigail held them off. Suddenly Margaret stiffened. A different sound, clear and strident, like the ringing of a cowbell, pierced the clamor at the foot of the stairs. She recognized her father's voice and the answering laugh of his friend.

  Joy and relief flooded her small frame. She drew in a deep, sustaining breath. Her father was home and he'd brought Captain Burke. Her father would make the angry people leave their house and all would be easy again.

  "Father is home," whispered Judith. "I can see him. He's brought Captain Burke." Margaret peered over her sister's shoulder. Her father stood, tall and reassuring in the lamp light. Her heart lifted. If only she could touch him, feel the scrape of his cheek, the touch of his arms as he swung her into the air. "I want to go to Father."