Wicked Girls

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Wicked Girls Page 12

by Stephanie Hemphill


  One cup dangles from my left pinkie,

  the other two from each thumb,

  and the pitcher weighs down

  my right side. Neither Margaret

  nor Mercy rise to help me.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask.

  Margaret rolls her eyes.

  I pour Mercy her water and she says,

  “John Alden was tied neck and heels

  until the blood gushed from his nose

  and he did confess he was a witch.”

  “They stretched his heels behind him

  and bound them to his neck?” I ask.

  “Yea, so he looked like the crescent

  moon,” Margaret says.

  I see Goodman Alden’s blood.

  I scream.

  “Ann.” Mercy’s voice is an axe.

  “Quit ye that. Ye sound like Susannah.”

  “Yea, Ann, else ye shall be as Susannah to us.”

  Margaret purses her lips

  just like my mother does at me.

  Mercy shakes her head at Margaret.

  “Best not to threaten Ann.”

  I expect Margaret to rip out two fists

  of Mercy’s hair, but she just looks down

  at her belly.

  Silence holds the room so tight

  no one dares even breathe.

  NOT AT HOME

  Margaret Walcott, 17

  Isaac comes not.

  I twist in the night

  like a wrung-out rag,

  wet and worn.

  Ann wakes. She covers

  her head with her pillow.

  I know she misses sleep.

  I pack my tapers and stockings

  and clothes and such.

  My home sounds as a bandage

  for this gash I got ripped

  across my chest.

  Home might feel as angel wings

  fanning me softly to dream.

  Home might bring Isaac

  back to me, as he’ll ne’er step boot

  in this place, not with all

  the witch-naming folk what live here.

  BROKEN KNIFE

  Ann Putnam Jr., 12

  We stuff into Salem Town’s courtroom.

  The wigged men scratch their heads,

  shift their papers, ready to decide

  if the witch Goody Good,

  the beggar woman we first accused

  who was known many years to be a witch,

  will be put to death.

  I hold above my head

  the jagged half of a broken knife.

  The metal sparkles across the courtroom.

  “Goody Good stabbed me in the breast

  with her knife until it broke.”

  Tucked deep in the back of the room,

  a young man clears his voice and says,

  “I believe that be part of my knife.

  I threw it away evening last.”

  “Come forward,” Judge Newton commands.

  The young farmhand places the handle

  of a broken half knife on the judges’ bench.

  “Ann, bring forth your piece.”

  Judge Stoughton points his gavel at me.

  He puzzles the two knife parts exactly together.

  The judge leans over the bench.

  His eyes wind up to slap my face.

  “In a courtroom one must be truthful.”

  Judge Stoughton reprimands,

  but he speaks to the farmhand,

  stares him down until the boy nods and says,

  “Yes, sir,” and slinks back into the crowd.

  Mercy tugs my arm after the proceedings.

  “Ann, do not cause suspicion.

  Steal not knives as evidence.”

  I start to explain, but Mercy cuts me—

  “You are keener than the other girls.

  I expect better from you.”

  MORNING STAR

  Ann Putnam Jr., 12

  “Miss Ann.” Susannah pants

  and bends over as she speaks.

  She grabs my arm as a brace.

  “Ye did so beautiful today.

  I could never be calm like ye

  in front of the judges and all.

  Ye work like a miracle.”

  “I was not—” I begin to tell her

  how I acted wrongly, but stop.

  Susannah pats my shoulder.

  “Mighty Miss Ann,” she sighs.

  Mother stares at Susannah and me,

  a look of disgust painted on her lips.

  I look over to Mercy,

  but when Mercy sees me

  she squares herself

  to talk only to Elizabeth.

  I turn then to Susannah, a servant

  not telling me what to do.

  Susannah bathes me in.

  I am sun and all to her.

  FASTING

  Margaret Walcott, 17

  I pin my dress.

  The fabric wraps again

  round half my body.

  My fingers blue ice

  even in summer’s heat.

  “Maaargaret.” I had forgotten

  that voice for a few weeks. Step-Mother

  ought to be fined for her hollering.

  “Yea,” I say as I skirt into the kitchen.

  “I made biscuits this morn.”

  She bares all her teeth,

  snaggled and black,

  something green caught

  between them.

  “You best eat my food.

  You might well have starved to death

  at your uncle’s, but not back here.”

  I slide past the table and tell her,

  “I got preliminary examinations

  in the meetinghouse, and then we testify

  in Salem’s court for the trials.”

  But before I can place my hand

  on the door, she wraps up

  a few of the crusty things.

  “Here then, take them with thee.”

  I inhale and reach for the door,

  but she holds me back.

  “I will see thee at the trial

  this afternoon. Judge Stoughton

  doth amaze with his questions.”

  She swipes her brow.

  I fear her swoon will tip her over

  and her massive form will crush me

  as wheat to flour.

  “Good day.” I say it sweet,

  but close the door

  with what little force I possess.

  Three steps down the road

  I yell, “Here, boy.”

  Ridley sniffs at my hand.

  The three biscuits devoured,

  he licks his chin for more.

  GAMES AT COURT

  Mercy Lewis, 17

  Judge Corwin adjusts his spectacles.

  “Charlotte Easty, many petitions

  be laid upon the bench for thee.

  What say you to these accusations

  of witchcraft?”

  Charlotte quivers not, no

  speck of madness in her eye.

  “I am innocent, sir.”

  Magistrate Hathorne points

  at Abigail and Ann,

  twisted as serpents upon the floor.

  “What have you done to these girls?”

  “Nothing but pray for them each

  night, for the Devil surely torments

  them,” Goody Easty says.

  The court falls quiet

  as the forest after a rainstorm

  until we girls

  scream out in pain.

  I shiver with a cold

  I have not known before,

  I know not why,

  and then I see it in their eyes:

  this crowd

  carries the hangman’s noose.

  Ann ceases her crying.

  I see her half-smile.

  “Perhaps ’twas not Charlotte Easty

  who tormented me.”<
br />
  Why is she doing this?

  I try to signal Ann not now,

  not today, but I am too late.

  Abigail follows her,

  “Yes, Charlotte Easty be not the one.”

  The courtroom stomps

  and roars like a mob

  of angry cattle.

  “Do not play, Ann,” I whisper.

  “I feel pinched!” I scream out,

  but the courtroom chant drowns

  my moaning.

  They scream, “Release Goody Easty!”

  as we girls are shuttled from

  a room of unfriendly eyes.

  I AM THE RINGLEADER?

  Mercy Lewis, 17

  “How could they release the witch

  Goody Easty, Rebecca Nurse’s

  second sister, from prison?”

  Ann whines in front of Abigail and Susannah.

  I nearly wish to push her into the stream

  as we travel back from Ingersoll’s tavern.

  You know why this happened,

  I want to scream in Ann’s face.

  I hate that I must actually say,

  “Some are already against us.

  We must be steadfast.

  We must never admit

  the path we take

  may be the wrong one.”

  I quicken my pace.

  Ann’s eyes sparkle with tears

  She starts, “But I—”

  I fairly well run in the opposite

  direction Ann travels home.

  I do not even want to hear

  her footsteps.

  I collapse at Constable Putnam’s

  door. They tuck me into my new bed.

  My fits must then begin,

  and never a cessation.

  I convulse so long I cannot stop

  twitching—dazed, speechless,

  choked violet, on death’s ashen pillow.

  A crowd gathers to witness my torture, my demise.

  Ann says, “’Tis Goody Easty

  who chokes Mercy.

  Goody Easty’s specter dances

  on the beam above Mercy’s head,

  twists a chain around her neck.”

  Abigail cries, “Goody Easty threatens

  to kill Mercy because

  Mercy accused her in the courtroom!”

  The girls all fall in line behind

  my horse. They follow the path.

  Except Susannah,

  who never does say

  she has seen Charlotte Easty.

  We shackle the witch

  into the jail’s dungeon,

  and my ailments

  slowly improve.

  I clearly will have to be the driver now.

  I must hold the whip,

  bear the cold and steer the carriage.

  For if I do not,

  then men like John Alden,

  who aided in killing my family,

  and Reverend Burroughs

  with his wicked hands

  and nasty belt upon wives and little girls,

  might also go free.

  I step up.

  I wind around my wrists

  Ann’s slacking reins.

  WE ALL SEE IT THE SAME

  Mercy Lewis, 17

  Charlotte Easty’s led

  into the Court of Oyer and Terminer,

  her face not deathly pale,

  but the sadness in her eyes

  greater than that of the sow

  next to be slaughtered.

  “I am innocent,”

  she says without spite.

  She looks like the sky

  around a star, almost radiant.

  “Charlotte Easty came at us

  with a spindle,” Ann cries.

  “Yea, she be stabbing at us,”

  Margaret says.

  Ann’s mother pulls herself to standing

  and stomps her heel—

  “Our spindle is gone missing.”

  Magistrate Corwin cannot hush

  the whirs of the crowd.

  It is now Susannah’s turn

  to act, but she forgets.

  She sits like a dumb ox.

  She forces me to rise from my bench

  and lunge into the middle

  of the courtroom.

  I tumble to the floor

  wrestling an unseen force.

  Abigail picks up quickly and says,

  “Mercy fights Goody Easty’s specter

  for the spindle. There! There!”

  And she points at me

  rolling like a ball of yarn

  around the floor.

  I arrest, still as a tomb,

  and the crowd silences.

  All hearts seem to leap from their chests—

  And folk worry do I breathe?

  Constable Putnam picks me up.

  I clasp the spindle

  to my breast. My eyes flutter.

  I crack awake like a hatching chick.

  The courtroom crowd cheers

  just as soldiers celebrate victory

  on the battlefield.

  “Is this your spindle?”

  Judge Hathorne asks Missus Putman.

  “Yea, that be one and the same,” she affirms.

  Charlotte Easty’s petitions

  and her eyes like the newborn babe’s

  no longer protect her.

  The crowd has witnessed

  her attempt to murder.

  All yell, “Witch!”

  She will hang now,

  an innocent woman,

  and ’tis my fault.

  I try to remind myself

  that I am avenging

  true demons like Burroughs

  and Alden, but Charlotte Easty—

  why, Lord, must she be sacrificed too?

  And yet I am blinded

  to any other way.

  ANN YET IN CHARGE?

  Mercy Lewis, 17

  “Well that you all followed

  my lead and sent Charlotte Easty

  back to her cell,” Ann whispers

  harshly at us and then stands to leave.

  Wilson sits and will not be stirred

  no matter how fierce Ann tugs

  his leash.

  Does Ann not realize

  that Charlotte Easty, an innocent woman,

  now will die, so that we will still

  be believed? That all of this

  might have been avoided had she

  not led the girls to release

  Charlotte Easty in the first place?

  The other girls nod, even Margaret.

  “’Twould have been horrid”

  —Ann again attempts to force

  Wilson to stand and leave Ingersoll’s

  with her—“otherwise.”

  Abigail begins, “Did not Mercy…”

  “Tomorrow at meeting no one

  shall cause disturbance. Understood?”

  Ann barks.

  Ann yanks Wilson’s collar, but

  he still holds his place.

  She meets the fire of my stare

  and hands over his leash.

  “I must go,” Ann says.

  “Mother needs, well,

  something.”

  FIRST WITCH HANGING

  Mercy Lewis, 17

  Black, she wears black,

  her petticoats like tar.

  The sky is white.

  I cannot look to it.

  Even her blood

  colored black.

  I cannot see

  but black and white.

  Old and dead,

  the tree that creeps

  from the rock

  wears no frock of leaves,

  not even in the summer.

  Charlotte Easty’s

  body convulses, her legs squirm.

  The blood gushes

  from beneath her blindfold,

  from her nose and mouth and ears.

  Sh
e dies slowly.

  She swings

  though no wind blows.

  My hands ball.

  I could punch down

  the clouds.

  There is such power

  in my hands.

  I bend over and retch

  like an empty water pump,

  for nothing comes out my mouth.

  The other girls gnaw

  on their nails, stare bewildered

  at the body hung on the tree.

  Margaret trembles.

  Her teeth chatter louder

  than shutters unloosed in strong wind.

  Abigail opens

  her lips to speak.

  I lift my finger,

  and she reconsiders.

  Elizabeth rubs her shoulder

  as Doctor Griggs

  checks the stopped pulse

  of the witch’s body.

  She then falls to her knees,

  folds and refolds her hands

  in prayer.

  Susannah stays

  wisely out of view.

  And Ann, Ann’s big eyes

  scour my skin. No matter

  what be about, even a hanging,

  Ann cannot unleash her eyes from me.

  REMORSE

  Mercy Lewis, 17

  Moon past its peak in the sky,

  I wander to the meetinghouse,

  crack the door to gloom and dark

  and hollowness. One other figure

 

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