Wicked Girls

by Stephanie Hemphill

  THE HUSH OF SNOW

  December 1692

  Cold restores order.

  Shrill winds muffle

  screaming, and the trees twist

  more deviant arms and legs

  than Affliction.

  The witch hunt is snuffed.

  The accusers slip

  under the silent ice

  of indifference.

  CANNOT TRUST HER

  Mercy Lewis, 17

  Cold as a January snowstorm,

  I rub my hands by the hearth

  and tiptoe into the hallway.

  “Now Reverend Hale too

  is against us,” Master Putnam says.

  I cannot see Master Putnam speak,

  but his boots smack the ground

  quick and anxious.

  “He now believes that the Devil

  impersonates innocent people,”

  Reverend Parris responds.

  Ann bumps my shoulder.

  “I thought you did not care

  anymore about witchcraft?”

  Ann talks as though she stands

  on stairs above me and must

  stoop to speak with me.

  “I don’t,” I say.

  Ann smiles sweetly and calls,

  “Reverend Parris.”

  She licks her lips.

  “Father!” She yells loud

  as though her hand were on fire.

  Ann’s father and Reverend Parris

  rush into the room.

  “What see you, child?”

  Reverend Parris asks.

  “Mercy stands about idle,”

  Ann says. “And when I told her

  Mother asked for aid, she refused

  to come.”

  I clench my tongue.

  None would hear my speech

  if I dared.

  Master Putnam looks at me,

  and with a voice of thorns

  he says, “Be off this moment, girl,

  to help Missus Putnam!”

  The Reverend shakes his head at me,

  eyes me as though

  I had ripped pages from his Bible.

  I gather my skirts. “Yes, sir,”

  I say without another look to Ann.

  AFTER AFFLICTION

  Margaret Walcott, 17

  I survey that no familiar eyes be about.

  “Elizabeth,” I call from the weaver’s shop.

  I wave her come near and ask,

  “Why be you in town?”

  “I come to buy flour and salt,”

  she says like she speaks to a stranger.

  We stand looking at each other,

  none talking.

  “So you are staying longer at your uncle’s?”

  I say.

  Elizabeth nods yes and tugs down her sleeve,

  trying to cover the bruise on her forearm.

  I expect her to say something,

  but I know not what.

  “I will marry Isaac in the spring,”

  I finally say, and square my hands

  on my hips.

  The snow falls in pieces

  thick and wet. Elizabeth’s hair

  looks full of Queen Anne’s lace.

  She sees something over my shoulder

  and backs away as though

  a beast crept up behind me.

  I turn round.

  My father looms over me.

  “Ye are not to be alone and speaking

  on the street, Margaret!”

  He snatches my arm

  and looks on Elizabeth as though

  she has the curse of the leper.

  Elizabeth keeps backing

  into the street.

  I hear the wheels

  and run of an oxcart.

  “Out of the way!” a voice hollers.

  I should grab after her.

  But, dear Lord, I cannot move.

  Elizabeth trips, stumbles upon

  her boot and falls into the street.

  A horse whinnies and moans.

  A terrible screech sounds,

  like a thousand birds crying

  all at once.

  I start to run forward,

  but Father holds me back

  and turns me round.

  “Do not look behind ye,”

  he commands.

  And I do as I be told.

  UNSTABLE GROUND

  Mercy Lewis, 17

  Ann flurries into the house

  and unstrings her bonnet

  with fierce excitement.

  “Elizabeth be dead!”

  I cannot stand.

  My legs suddenly made of dust,

  not bone, I crash to the floor.

  “She was run down

  by an oxcart.

  Some did say

  ’twas the Devil

  taking back his own.”

  The tears flood me.

  I wish to pound the floor

  like a mad gavel

  and scream, “Why?”

  But none in this house

  would care,

  so I swallow

  the hot iron brand

  of my anger.

  Ann looks to her mother.

  “The driver said he never

  saw Elizabeth in the road.”

  Missus Putnam nods to Ann

  with an almost smile,

  “Well, ’tis a pity, but she should

  have been more mindful

  walking in the road.”

  The floor beneath me

  opens as a pit in my mind,

  bottomless,

  and I know I will never find

  footing in this house.

  RULES

  Margaret Walcott, 17

  Never will my father speak

  of what we girls done

  the past year, for the Devil does deceive.

  ’Tis better to pretend nothing

  happened than to admit

  we girls were wrong.

  But there is no lying in my father’s house,

  and I am not to speak

  lest I be answering back.

  And if I wish to be wed

  I best never step boot

  out of the house

  (except when my father commands).

  And I shall eat all what’s served me

  and show proper gratitude for it.

  But most important of all

  I must, at all times,

  act a lady

  or find home elsewhere.

  Father smacks the table,

  grabs his coat and hat

  and gusts out the door.

  Step-Mother sneers at me

  like a dockside rat.

  She drops the largest basket

  of laundry and mending to my feet.

  She smiles and gives me

  a nasty little “Hmmph,”

  testing whether I be fool

  enough to talk out of turn.

  I be muted now like one what

  cut off her own tongue.

  I straighten my bonnet.

  At least no bastard grows within me.

  Father’s edict and Step-Mother’s tricks

  be temporary as a storm;

  come spring I shall live elsewhere.

  Before the hearth, I kneel

  and fold prayerful hands,

  asking the Lord and my mother

  for strength.

  I treadle. I mend. I scour

  better than the maid.

  None says, “Fine work,”

  but I know what I have done.

  A HANGING TREE IS NOT A FAMILY TREE

  Mercy Lewis, 17

  On my way back

  from town

  I lose my trail

  in the thick forest snow

  and pass Gallows Hill.

  I hold my breath

  as even after all these months

  it smells of blood.

  Ghosts wander the
grounds

  where no birds lay nest,

  no fields bear crops,

  no trees can root,

  except the scraggly one

  which dangled the dead.

  “Witch!” I scream it

  to the stillness,

  for there are none to hear me.

  But I wonder if somehow

  my mother can hear me now.

  I have not thought of her

  all these months of trials;

  perhaps if I had

  no bodies would have

  swung from that tree.

  Mother, we did wrong,

  we were deceived.

  Pray we will be forgiven

  as we are forgotten.

  A villain and a vagrant,

  must I lay root elsewhere?

  I have accused.

  Perhaps I cannot stay here.

  ISOLATION

  Margaret Walcott, 17

  Hollow as a gutted

  fish.

  Lonely as

  driftwood

  banked to shore.

  Not a friend,

  not a foe—

  would any really

  care if an oxcart

  crushed me?

  POOR ABIGAIL

  Mercy Lewis, 17

  She sweeps the meetinghouse floor,

  the look of the doe been shot

  in her wide blue eyes.

  “Mercy!” Abigail runs to unlatch

  the doors and let me in.

  She clings to me like I am

  her mother lost and now returned.

  “What be about the parsonage

  of late?” I whisper.

  She too hushes her voice.

  “Betty come home.”

  Abigail looks to cry.

  “’Tis wretched. The Reverend

  be feared they what lost kin

  in the witch trials will come

  after him.” She glances down

  and says in a quiet

  that does rival Elizabeth,

  “And he blames me.”

  She bunches up her sleeve—

  scars of burning begin

  at her shoulder and line

  to her wrist.

  “How dare he!” I grab the broom

  and charge toward the entrance

  to the residence to blame

  the monster himself.

  “Mercy, I beg thee no.”

  Abigail hugs tight my leg

  so that I must drag her.

  I stop. She is right.

  ’Tis not worth hanging

  to harm the Reverend.

  Abigail looks up at me.

  “I have written to my aunt

  in Maine, and soon I will live there.”

  I pat the front wood bench

  where we resided most

  of the year, fitting and screaming

  in Affliction.

  I motion Abigail to lay her head

  in my lap such that I might

  stroke her hair.

  “But until you depart,

  what will you do?”

  With closed eyes

  but a direct tongue she says,

  “I just never speak

  so as to be forgotten.”

  FAMILY

  Mercy Lewis, 17

  Baby Hannah curdles

  the night air with her screaming.

  I rush into the hall,

  but the crying be gone.

  ’Tis almost as if I imagined

  the sound.

  I shake from cold,

  cannot find warmth

  beneath my covers.

  I pull my knees

  into my belly

  and again I hear Hannah.

  I light a taper

  and creak open my door.

  Ann paces outside my room,

  rocking Hannah.

  “Do you want me to take my baby?”

  I ask.

  “She is not your baby!”

  Ann’s eyes widen as her tongue whips,

  “She is not even your sister!”

  Ann backs me into my quarters.

  “And thank the Lord, for all kin

  of yours find death.”

  Though I did not mean

  to call Hannah my own,

  ’twas but twisted words,

  I wonder what it would be

  to rock my own child.

  My arms pretend to cradle

  a baby against my chest.

  I reach behind the wardrobe

  until my fingers find the envelope.

  The letter from my father long lost,

  but the address

  to Aunt Mary Lewis Skilling Lewis

  is what I seek.

  I must believe that some of my kin live,

  for my roots did not take to this soil.

  No family tree will grow for me

  in Salem Village.

  I found only a hanging tree

  of more death.

  I smooth the envelope.

  It feels as though

  I clutch a ticket

  as important as passage papers

  to the New World.

  HOUSEBOUND

  Margaret Walcott, 17

  Step-Mother growls

  as I hand over my plate.

  She removes the bread

  and sets the rest down

  for Ridley.

  “Ann’s new sister, Hannah,

  must be a month old by now,”

  I say. “Might I go visit them?”

  Father stomps into the room.

  “Does seem that I heard

  a voice in this room.

  Or perhaps ’twas the wind,

  because no one I know

  would talk when not required.”

  He swings a scarf round his neck.

  “No one else leaves this house.”

  The door stays cracked open

  behind him. I push it closed.

  Step-Mother sits at the wheel.

  “Ye are not so important

  as ye believed, since the governor

  closed down that court.”

  She smiles sly as a sinner.

  “I will chop the wood.”

  I find my mittens under the bench.

  “Ye are not to leave this house,”

  Step-Mother says.

  “Or I will tell your father.”

  I feel as to burst.

  “He meant I could not

  go outside for chores?”

  “Watch thy wicked tongue.

  I believe that be

  exactly what he meant,”

  she says without a glance at me.

  She tosses trousers which smell

  of horse dung on my lap.

  Step-Mother commands,

  “Get to work.”

  Six months, only six months

  more in this house.

  CARETAKER

  Ann Putnam Jr., 12

  Baby Hannah cries and cries.

  I almost want to just set her down

  and go to my room and close the door.

  “You want Mother, don’t you.”

  I drop the baby in Mercy’s arms.

  “I can do no other chores,” I say.

  “I thought I was not to tend Hannah.”

  Mercy hands Hannah back to me.

  “She is hungry.

  Give her to the wet nurse.”

  “Wet nurse left for a family in Boston;

  conditions are better there.”

  I roll the infant back to Mercy.

  Mercy bounces Hannah,

  and she stops crying like

  Mercy cast a spell upon her.

  “Mother and Father stricken.

  I pray we don’t lose them both.”

  I lean against the table.

  Mercy holds the baby in one arm

  and chops the legs off a chicken

  with her free hand.

  �
�I would be sent to live with Uncle John.

  My brothers and sisters

  would be scattered all about,” I say.

  White feathers gather like piles of snow

  on either side of Mercy.

  “Yes,” Mercy says.

  Her eyes never rise from her work.

  My chest heaves.

  I huff and fall into a chair.

  “That would be dreadful

  to lose our house and farm.”

  I touch my forehead and say,

  “I might have a fever.”

  “Ann!” Mother screams,

  loud and troubled.

  “Mercy,” I plead.

  “I have been tending her and Father

  for two days. I must rest.”

  “What other help do we have?”

  Mercy asks. Her eyes are the bull’s

  “right before he runs.

  “None. They are helping repair

  “the meetinghouse so that it won’t

  “be dreadful cold every Sabbath.

  Father promised the Reverend

  “that he would—”

  She holds up her hand.

  ““Just go.”

  “The other little ones are napping,”

  I say, and limp to my bedroom.

  A scream from the nursery

  “feels like knives in my side.

  I quicken my steps.

  “Ann!” Mother hollers again.