dear Margaret, and I will provide thee
names for the specters you know not.”
She cradles me to her breast.
“Oh, I am so glad you are come.”
SUPPER GUESTS
Mercy Lewis, 17
Mister Putnam straightens his back.
Goodman Farrar, Isaac’s father,
a small man with a fair face
and the manners of a minister’s wife,
sits aside Mister Putnam.
He nods at Missus Putnam.
“Thank ye for the fine meal.”
Missus cooked not a crumb on the table.
“Thou art quite welcome, dear sir,” she says.
The baby wails from the nursery.
All mugs beg filling.
And the plates ought be cleared.
I rise to tend the child.
Isaac and his father stand when I do
as though I am the lady
I was born to be.
Margaret clenches her fork.
Ann follows me, and Missus
nearly slaps her back to seating.
“Let Mercy attend to matters alone.”
Only Wilson be permitted to trail me now.
I tramp down the hall
and lean over the baby’s cradle.
“Shhhh,” I say until his storming settles.
I clear the plates, refresh the mugs
and set to wash the pots.
“Mercy,” Isaac says from a foot behind me.
“Thomas asks that you sit
and take cider and tea with the family.”
Even though he just supped,
Isaac looks at me as though
he has not eaten in weeks
and would lick
my palms to taste me,
I smell to him so sweet.
Wilson begins a growl,
but I muzzle his snout.
How lovely would it be to witness
Margaret the Mean, the bloomer thief, churn
because of my doings for once?
I flick my curls behind my shoulder
and bloom my eyes as petals
at Margaret’s beau.
I drop the cloth in my hands.
Isaac bends to pick it up,
and I stoop too.
Isaac breathes upon my neck.
“Ye are—” he begins.
“Your father calls you!”
Margaret’s voice severs our air.
But Isaac does not cut his stare from me.
Margaret quivers in her speech.
“I shall stay and help Mercy.”
I scrub the pan to rid it
of grease and burn.
Margaret clamps my arm.
“Do not speak to him,” she threatens.
“I did not,” I say.
I wipe my hands, turn from her
and swirl into my place
aside Mister Putnam.
Isaac’s eyes fasten on me
tighter than the collar at my neck.
Margaret ruptures in fit.
“Goody Hobbs pinches me!”
Isaac greens. He shakes his head.
His father, who has offered
not an impolite word the night long,
says, “We shall be off,”
and leaves without finishing his tea,
without a “thank you” or “good evening.”
“But Deliverance Hobbs
admitted to being a witch!”
Margaret’s fists pound the floor
until her hands bleed.
Tears wash her face.
Though Margaret’s speech turns gibberish,
I distinctly hear her say, “Isaac,”
but I repeat this not
for I know she does not mean
to name him witch.
DIVISION
Margaret Walcott, 17
Papers stack the courtroom.
Signatures Isaac gathers
enough to empty an ink pot,
all saying the accused
be not the Devil’s kin.
The Village divides
like a gash sawed through
the center of the church.
Reverend Parris and us girls
and those believing
in the witches we name
and them what don’t.
My Isaac stands square
on the other side of the church
from me.
I try and straddle
the hole between us
but it be growing wide.
MY MOTHER
Ann Putnam Jr., 12
Mother says,
“Remain in thy room
at lesson today.”
Mother says, “See that Margaret
has the covers she requires for her bed.”
Mother says, “My head doth ache.
And my stomach has unrest.
Fetch me a cloth.” Mother says,
“Ann, pick not at thy skirt.
Hold thy shoulders straight.”
Mother demands, “The next to be
accused will be one who watched
me as a child, John Willard.
One who was too ready with his whip.”
Mother says, “That Mercy speaks
too often for a servant.”
Mercy feels not well,
and still Mother loads Mercy’s basket
with mending and all the needlework
Margaret ought do, and when I lift
one finger to aid or accompany Mercy,
Mother says, “Do see what thy cousin
is about.”
“But my cousin—” I say.
“Defy me never,” Mother says.
And I decide
’tis time Mother
learns to speak kinder
to Mercy and me.
OUR LITTLE BARGAIN
Ann Putnam Jr., 12
“Mother, I believe I saw John Willard—
the one who tended you unkindly
when you were a child.
The specters of John Willard
and Rebecca Nurse
told me they murdered
baby Sarah last summer.”
Mother looks down at her stomach,
now round with a new child.
Mother’s eyes fuel.
“My dearest Ann,
’tis true.” She attempts
to clasp my hand.
I withdraw my palm
from hers like we play hot coals.
“Or perhaps, I did not.”
Mother looks perplexed.
I stroke her arm and smile.
“My sight can sometimes become
hazy and sometimes be made clear.
Same with the other girls.
I see more clearly when you are kind
to Mercy and me.”
Mother exhales out her nose
and says with direct eyes,
“Then I shall be kinder to you both.”
MINE FOR THE TAKING
Mercy Lewis, 17
The cave of Ingersoll’s shrouds me.
I pat Wilson’s head
and close my eyes.
Ann says, “Margaret,
I care not who Mother told ye
she knew to be a witch.
’Tis who we say.
This week we see old man Giles Corey,
whose wife be already in prison.”
Stead of gnashing her gums,
Margaret nods at Ann.
“For all his tongue-lashing against us,
Goodman Corey ought have it nipped.”
“We also see Mercy’s prior master,
Reverend George Burroughs.
Remember to call him the Grand Conjurer,
the leader of the witches.
Father sent a party up to Maine
already to arrest him.”
Margaret shakes her horse head:
“Mercy
lies. Reverends are not wizards.”
Abigail whispers hesitantly,
“I seen ’em both.
Uncle says Reverend Burroughs
stole from Salem Village
when he was pastor here.
He must work for the Devil.”
Ann be not impressed with Abigail.
“Do you think I know this not?”
Ann squints one eye at the rest of us
as though her words be luminary.
“Both men have been known
to murder wives and servants.”
Elizabeth peeps open her mouth,
“I seen none ye named.
I cannot testify.”
“If ye testify not and see not,
then out with you.”
Ann’s words fierce as frostbite,
she motions toward the door.
“Go on serving always Doctor Griggs.”
Margaret adds,
“Defy your calling, Elizabeth,
and the Lord will punish you.”
Elizabeth shivers.
She rubs her shoulder.
“I follow the Lord.
Pray do not send me home.”
Isaac Farrar enters the ordinary
as a gust of wind.
Margaret loses breath.
But Isaac looks not on her;
he beckons me with his eyes.
Margaret be turned over.
I could melt her to nothing.
She be that much a gob
of butter. All I need do
is sashay over to Isaac
and bat my lids
and call him outside.
I stand,
but Wilson bites my sleeve
and pulls me down to seating.
NEW GIRL
Ann Putnam Jr., 12
“Susannah,” I say, and a girl
twice the size round and half
the size tall she ought to be
waves at me from the corner.
I sink. My idea to replace Abigail
with this new, older girl
seems now nothing but folly.
“Ann Putnam,” she says
in a voice overfull of cheer.
“’Tis your father who issues
complaints against the witches
who torture me—what a man he must be.”
“Yes,” I say. Susannah Sheldon’s
yellowed dress rags at the edges
and has been let out more than once.
“You are as all do say.”
Susannah puts her stubby hand on mine.
“A perfect lady.”
“Want some?” I offer her
a piece of my bread.
No doubt she’ll take it.
Susannah shakes her head.
“Cannot. Martha Corey chokes me
each time I try to take a bite.”
She brings the bread to her lips
but as soon as she tries to bite,
her face blues and her throat tightens.
All the folk in Ingersoll’s
stop their dining and look on Susannah.
I pry the bread from her hand.
“Goody Corey stops her eating,” I say.
Susannah returns to color and breath.
“Ann, you saved me.”
She says it so all hear.
UPHEAVAL
June 1692
Why uproot
a perfectly healthy
white blazing star
from the soil
to allow room
for a roadside weed?
The purple love grass
may appear somewhat
spectacular at first
with its bright-colored veins,
but it grows wide and irreverent,
knows not how to
contain itself
within the garden.
DO WE NEED ABIGAIL?
Mercy Lewis, 17
Ann flits about the room
in her white streaming nightclothes.
Her skirts pick up
under the little gusts of air
created by her wake.
“Abigail”…she hesitates like
the squirrel who tests his branch
before scurrying onto it…
“speaks out of turn.
She follows not as the others.”
I say, “She is young, and she will follow
orders better than most. You shall see.”
Ann ventures onto the branch,
wobbly on her little paws.
“Do we really need Abigail
to be part of the group?”
I brush out my hair.
I wish to brush out this nonsense.
“She was one of the first two to see,
and she lives with the Reverend.
What have you against Abigail still?”
“She acts like my baby sister.
I think I have a girl to replace her.”
“Who, Ann? Who else has our sight?”
I pull hard on my brush.
Ann stands behind me
so I cannot see her face.
She gulps in some air.
“Susannah Sheldon, a maid
from Salem Town. She is very nice.
And she speaks well and torments well.”
“Ann, ’tis dangerous to bring
new people into the group.
Forget not the lesson of Ruth Warren
the traitor,” I say.
Ann’s face sulks like the willow’s branch.
“But of course, we should ask
all the other girls,” I say,
my brush clenched tight.
“Perhaps it will be decided to be
a fine idea.”
“And what about Abigail?” she asks.
I stroke Ann’s head.
“She is good to have at hand.”
CAN SHE BE OF USE?
Mercy Lewis, 17
We leave Susannah
loitering outside the tavern
like a beggar.
Ann says, “She’ll be of help to us.”
“But she’s not from the village.
She dwells in town,” Margaret rebuffs
her cousin.
Abigail looks down,
afraid to give speech.
Elizabeth struggles to put her words
together. “Maybe we should pray
and let the Lord guide us.
We do not know Susannah.”
“Exactly the truth.” Margaret stands.
She says, “We know not
that we can trust her.
She is from the outside.”
“But we must grow in numbers.”
Ann’s hands ball into fists.
I open my lips to say
let Susannah
remain where she is,
shut out of our doors,
’tis dangerous to let in new blood.
But then Margaret blurts
from her sour mouth,
“Must we grow
with orphans and servants?
Will the town believe
words of them so low?”
“We need to enlarge our group.”
I push away from the bench.
I open the doors to the ordinary,
strain my eyes against bright noon
and let Susannah Sheldon
into our circle in the shade.
THE MOST AFFLICTED
Mercy Lewis, 17
Susannah’s hands nearly twist
full-round at the wrist
like a weather vane
swept up in a great gust of wind.
Her fingers arrow at each witch
Ann names, even ones Susannah
must never have set eyes upon.
The crowd gasps.
Ruth Warren stuns silent on the stand.
She cannot playact afflicted again;
none can match S
usannah’s skill.
Abigail opens her mouth
to cry out “Ruth Warren,”
but her lips move without sound.
Tears sink her eyes,
and Abigail tries to sit down,
but Susannah occupies
double her rightful space
on the bench, and Abigail
is forced into the pew behind us.
Ann smiles. I look away.
Margaret whispers to Elizabeth,
“Susannah be a braggart”
as she elbows Susannah’s jaw
like one harsh gavel blow.
Elizabeth’s eyes focus on the doors
like she herself feels chained
and examined and awaits her moment
to run.
I exhale.
This feels nothing
like a court examination
but as though
one might next see
a three-headed horse
parade round the pulpit.
LESSONS TO BE LEARNED
Margaret Walcott, 17
“They be needing aid at the Wilkins home,”
Uncle Thomas says to Ann and me
and stinking Mercy.
“Bray Wilkins suffers and they believe
’tis witchcraft what causes his grief.
You girls must visit and tell all
what ye can see of the Invisible World.”
Mercy look at Ann, and I know
Mercy been deviling with Ann’s mind.
Ann clutches her father’s arm.
Wicked Girls Page 9
