Children of Salem

by Robert W. Walker

  Rebecca patted her daughter’s hand in a mock spanking. “How tart your tongue’s become since I’ve not been around.”

  “Tart indeed! Growing up with all these boys of yours!”

  “Oh, how bright you are, Serena. Now as to my promise to myself and to my Maker, it was a simple enough wish: If I should live long enough, I’d gather my family one and all about me again in a time of happiness . . . like pulling a warm blanket about me.”

  “But all we Nurses, Eastys, Cloyses, and Townes do when we get together is fight.”

  “I’d love to see a lively family battle!”

  Serena laughed, and her mother joined in.

  “Promised,” Rebecca said, staring out the window at the dry sink. “Promised before God that if He allowed me this one last spring that—”

  “Please, Mother, don’t speak as if—”

  “Everyone knows I’m a practical woman.”

  “And stubborn.”

  “Yes and faithful to God.”

  “And without fear of this or the next world.”

  Rebecca patted Serena’s cheek with her fingertips. “I’ve done well with my time here, and while acts do not ensure us a seat in His house, well, I have my hope that my heart is pure enough for reward—though I beg none.”

  “To be sure, amen.” Serena leaned into her mother, and they hugged warmly.

  “The story is all over the village,” said Serena’s father, stepping into the kitchen.

  “What story is that?” asked Serena.

  “You’d not believe how many lips the story is on.”

  “What story is that, Father?” pressed Serena.

  “Why the story of you and your mother’s plans for a picnic amid the snow.”

  “Blast them!” said Rebecca.

  “Mother!” replied Serena, blast being a standin for a curse word.

  “I care not for gossips and snipes.”

  Francis had grabbed a fistful of freshly baked bread and leaned into his wife, smiling. He whispered into her ear, “So? They’re saying you’re out of your head, Rebecca, but you care not?”

  “And on hearing it, did you strike ’em with that blackthorn shillelagh of yours?”

  A square-shouldered, short man whose waistcoat and pants always looked too small for him, Francis Nurse smiled and lifted his crooked walking cane. “I threatened a few, but no one’s been battered, no.”

  “Whatever do you mean, no one?” persisted Rebecca, a curling grin threatening to take hold.

  “I didn’t want jail time or the stocks today, dear.”

  “There was a time, Francis Nurse, when you’d’ve risked the stocks for me.”

  “You are in fine tune, aren’t you, my lovely harp.” He kissed his wife on the lips.

  “Careful now! In front of your daughter.”

  “Oh, Mother, shall I leave you two alone?” Serena coyly offered.

  “No! We have too much work to do.”

  “All the others’ll bring a dish,” countered Serena. “I think we’ll have plenty.”

  “Aye, a party,” Francis shouted, “and a fine party it’s to be. All is set for tomorrow noon then?”

  “It is.” Serena hugged her father.

  “All of the rascals, big and small, have their orders then?” added Francis.

  “I want to thank you two dears for making this happen,” replied Rebecca.

  “Happen it will,” said Francis, “like a ship come to ground. No stopping it, now.”

  “I am fatigued,” announced Rebecca, laboring to her feet with Francis’ help. “Think I’ll take sleep.”

  “I’ll help you upstairs,” suggested Serena.

  “That’s my job,” countered Francis.

  “Neither of you have to bother.”

  “What?” asked Serena.

  “I’m done with that sick room for a time.”

  “Meaning?” asked Francis.

  “I’m going to sleep in Benjamin’s old room, right down here. He’s not using it.”

  “The stairs’ve gotten difficult for me, too,” commented Francis.

  “Has nothing to do with the stairs,” complained Rebecca, swiping at him. “I can

  make the stairs!”

  “Good, good.”

  Rebecca rose and moved through the house, gray-haired, her sunken cheeks crisscrossed with wrinkles from having lost so much weight. She went to the porch and stood in the night air, staring out at the work they’d done. “The circle is in place, lantern’s hung,” she muttered, seeing a strange movement in the nearby wood. Squinting, she saw that it was that addled Sarah Goode, and she was carrying something oddly like a child but too stiff to be a child, yet a child nonetheless—a wooden doll with yellow hair.

  “What mischief is that daft old woman up to?” she asked Francis as he joined her, placing a shawl over her shoulders.

  “Who’re you talking about? I see no one.”

  “I think it was Goode.”

  “That odd creature? Did you hear bells, bottles jingling?”

  “I thought it a sleigh in the distance, but yes, I did.”

  “Every village must have its witch,” he muttered, “as well we know.”

  “How else can we faithful hope to measure our goodness if not for such as Sarah Goode?”

  He nodded and thought of his responsibilities as Deacon under Samuel Parris’ Meetinghouse. “I daresay you’re right there.”

  “No woman was ever so sorely miss-named as Goode, eh?” She laughed and placed an arm around Francis.

  Francis nodded appreciatively. “Curses like a sailor. Word has it, she gave Mr. Parris a tongue-lashing of the first order ’bout a week ago.”

  “Is that so?” asked Rebecca, curious.

  “I’ve only heard ’bout it down at Ingersoll’s.”

  “No good can come of that gossip Ingersoll.”

  “Goode laid into Sam hard, or so it’s told, right at the commons, middle of the day.”

  “I have a bad feeling,” said Serena, joining them, “that Goode is up to no good. I’ve seen her coming and going toward Swampscott, and what’s out there but isolation?”

  Francis lit his pipe. “They say she’s spreading as much venom about the parish and Parris as she can.”

  “Venom, eh?” Serena helped her mother to the porch swing.

  “In the form of cursing Mr. Parris and the parish house.”

  “That parish house surely needs no more curse on it than it already has,” replied Rebecca, swinging now with Serena softly pushing.

  “Too true! Found out by previous occupants!” She held back a laugh.

  “Nothing funny about that, girl!” decried Francis, turning on her. “You’d think the village parish house haunted.” Francis puffed on his pipe. “Burroughs, Bailey before him, and Deodat Lawson—all stricken in one foul measure or another.”

  Serena shrugged. “Maybe the parsonage is haunted.”

  “And now?” asked Rebecca, “Everyone believes it’s Parris’ turn, I suppose.”

  Francis exhaled smoke into the night sky. “I suppose everyone does.”

  Serena bit her lip. “He’s not helped his cause with his last several sermons, I can tell you.”

  “I can’t believe you continue to go down to hear such self-indulgence as you’ve described—either of you,” said Rebecca. “The man has no shame.”

  “I go because I remain a deacon there and Parris has most of the elders and deacons in his pocket.”

  “Give it up the, Father!” countered Rebecca.

  “I will fight this business ’til—”

  “Until Parris manages to replace you, Father?” asked Serena.

  “Ah, and he likes calling me stubborn!” Rebecca laughed. “But what about, you, Serena?” Rebecca busied herself with releasing ties from her hair. “Why do you go to hear Parris?”

  “I go to support Father, of course! The only deacon left to stand against the man.” Serena had begun to put her mother’s thin hair into a fresh
bun. Such activity between them had become so routine that no words were needed.

  “Careful, Francis,” began Rebecca, “else some of that village poison will spill in our cups.”

  “Careful it is. Steady as she goes.”

  “Are you speaking of me now?” Rebecca laughed.

  “Yes, and off to bed with you both,” he said, “wherever you choose to lie your head.”

  “Not me,” countered Serena, going to the end of the porch and leaping off. Her parents knew where she was off to—the stables. “I’m going for a ride before bed.”

  “Why do you wish to worry us so?” asked Francis. “Look at you in Ben’s old chaps and hat. Riding astride a horse like a man!”

  “Let her go, old man!” Rebecca scolded so that Serena didn’t have to argue with her father.

  “She’s got in this habit of…of wandering the night, Mother. Looks bad.”

  “To whom? And why do we care?” Serena burst out, wishing she hadn’t.

  “If it’s so proper, young lady, then why not ride in daylight?”

  Serena rushed out and shouted over her shoulder from the porch, “I won’t leave the property. Promise.”

  Alone now, watching their youngest disappear into the barn, Rebecca asked, “Will you come into my bed tonight, Francis?”

  “Ben’s bed?”

  “Ben’s room, yes.”

  “I will.”

  They embraced, neither seeing young Serena watching from the stable where she saddled her horse. She’d gotten into the habit of riding the property each night, weather permitting. She climbed onto her horse, Nightshade, and she soon galloped in the general direction of the river—riding as freely as any man might and in the manner of a man. She meant to follow it for a while, turn and return home and to a bed warmed well by now, what with her having placed the bed coals beneath. The evening ride was her way of finding some peace and beauty in life, and riding beneath the stars and planets on a clear night felt like freedom.

  From inside the house, Serena’s aging parents heard the hooves of her thundering horse as she raced off.

  Chapter Twelve

  The following morning

  Jeremiah Wakely walked with a bounce in his step, and he felt the eyes of the villagers on him, step for step, as he made his way across the main thoroughfare for Ingersoll’s Ordinary & Inn. On Sabbath Days long before the village had erected a parsonage and a proper meetinghouse, Ingersoll’s stood in for the official gathering place. Ingersoll’s Inn continued yet as the center of village life, commerce and conversation, news and gossip, and in more than one sense spiritual libation. In 1692 far more imbibing from the keg than from the bible went on here. And it was the place to post a letter, which was Jeremy’s goal.

  The exterior hadn’t changed save for a new sign in bold giant letters, reading: Ingersoll’s Ordinary, Apothecary & Inn. As he approached the front doors, Jeremiah recalled that it’d always been a hodgepodge, somewhere between an apothecary (filled with elixirs and rubs from plants to bear grease) and a dry goods and millinery shop sharing space with an alehouse. Some said the place reflected Nathaniel Ingersoll completely.

  The first visit to Ingersoll’s that Jeremy had made, when he’d pushed through the creaking, swinging doors, old, heavyset Nathaniel Ingersoll, having heard of a Wakely who’d come to apprentice under Reverend Parris, rushed at Jeremy with open arms. “God blind me if it isn’t you! Jeremiah Wakely in the flesh.” Ingersoll had then lifted Jeremy off his feet with a bone-jarring bear hug. “What a bully young man you are! And you’ve turned to the ministry! Wonderful news!”

  And now entering this morning, he got just as warm a welcome as ever. Ingersoll came around the counter and shook his hand and introduced him to some men who seemed disinterested.

  “Good to see you, too, Mr. Ingersoll.” A twinge of guilt laced Jeremy’s words. “You’ve hardly changed in all these years.”

  “Liar! A kind-hearted boy you always were, but I’m forty pounds more, and me jowls are flab! But you, now, that’s change indeed! What a temperate man you’ve become!”

  “Ten years and you don’t look a day older, really, sir.” Ingersoll did seem ageless, a huge round man.

  “Harrr! We’re all fortunate for each day God grants us, Jeremiah! Let me pour you a cup of ale.”

  “That does sound good, yes.”

  Jeremy approached the bar, and as Ingersoll went for the ale, but the big bear stopped in his tracks, turned and with a wide-eyed look of confusion on his bearded face, he lamented, “Oh my, but if you’re ordained a minister, and me a deacon now, I’ll have to call you Mr. Wakely, now won’t I?”

  “It’s not come to that yet, sir.”

  “Then I’ve leave to call you—”

  “Jeremy will do, as always, Mr. Ingersoll.”

  Ingersoll smiled from behind a squirrel’s nest of a beard. He threw back his head, the wild shocks of hair flying like Medusa’s curls, and he laughed the laugh of Neptune. He had always been a mainstay in Salem Village, but how wonderful a pirate he’d’ve made, Jeremy recalled thinking as a child. Some things never change.

  As Jeremy watched his old overseer pour ale, it seemed time had stood still.

  The counter here, which doubled as a bar at one end, a cutting board at the other, remained as always the same. Stools stood at this end, brooms, yardsticks, scissors, and bolts of cloth cluttered the other. The room spread out wide, the rear of it a large affair with ten-foot high dropped beamed ceilings. All of the finest spruce, but the caulking showed age and water seeped in here and there. Mildew collected in corners, and the seeping rainwater on stormy days and nights must be collected in buckets and pails.

  The lion's share of the store was turned over to fresh produce, fish and fowl, beaver and marmet pelts, bolts of cloth, as well as carpentry tools and farm and garden instruments. Along one wall traps of every size along with hunting and fishing equipment, as well as buckets and mops, and the most characteristic element Jeremy remembered from his youth—the large stand of brooms all in a circle at the center. Nor had he forgotten the taffy and hard candy jar on the counter alongside the pickled eggs, vegetables, nuts, and berries. And all of it was set aglow by the huge fireplace at the end of the room.

  “So it is Deacon Ingersoll these days?” asked Jeremy, taking a dram of ale.

  Ingersoll looked stricken. “It’s no easy task, let me tell you.”

  “You’re having to referee between Mr. Parris and his flock I imagine.”

  “Half or more of his flock, yes.”

  Ingersoll was always easy with local news and gossip himself. “Who leads the dissenting faction?”

  “Francis Nurse and his wife, Rebecca.”

  “Really?” This took Jeremy aback. “I thought it Tarbell, Proctor maybe.”

  “More her than Francis, actually, and some say Rebecca’s fallen ill as a result of bedeviling our minister.”

  “Ill? How ill?”

  “Been abed all winter she has.”

  “I see.” Jeremy read the notices on the bulletin board pinned there and forgotten. One was a call to the Militia Company, which was to meet and parade about the village the next day. “Are you still with the militia company, sir?”

  “Aye and I’m nowadays Lieutenant Ingersoll.” The man beamed far more at this label than at being called a deacon.

  “That’s grand news.” Jeremy knew him as a terrible shot.

  “They’ve turned over the artillery to my care. I’m in charge of the unit.”

  “Artillery?”

  “Yes, we’ve a cannon now.”

  “A big one, I hope.”

  “A twelve-pounder, Jeremy! Come from Barbados with the new minister.”

  Jeremy replied in mock toast, thinking, the man comes with a cannon to barter for the parsonage? “Mr. Parris brought a cannon with him?”

  “He’s a wise enough fellow, our new minister.” Ingersoll laughed, picking up on the innuendo. “He was in the metal business in Barbados
. Had an interest in a foundry there.”

  “Wise, eh? He’s been in the parish for three years, yet everyone calls him the new minister, including you.”

  “Ah! Well, only to distinguish him from the old minister. The former that is.”

  “Burroughs, yes.”

  “Now there was a minister could put away the ale and canary wine. What a fine wake he threw for his dear departed.”

  “A wake he paid for behind bars?”

  “You’ve kept an ear to our doings then, have you, Jeremy?”

  “I have, sir, yes.”

  “Morbid curiosity?”

  “Simple curiosity, actually. How you jailed your own minister for nonpayment of debts has had wide purchase, sir.”

  “There’s no denying we’re an unhappy, sour, melancholy lot here in the village.”

  Jeremy lifted his ale to this to Ingersoll’s continued laughter.

  “On the whole that is.” Ingersoll dropped the mirth and his gaze for an uncharacteristic moment of sullen thought, eyebrows twitching like black wholly worms.

  “All but you, Mr. Ingersoll,” Jeremy attempted to help him from the moment of pain he seemed to be reliving. “I never knew you to be melancholy.”

  “Come see me round three in the morning.”

  “The Devil’s hour?” Three AM being the inversion of three PM, the traditional time of the trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. As with all Christian ritual, Satan had his twisted and sometimes turned-upside-down version, Satan as Father, Satan’s son, Satan’s own Holy Ghost. Satan mocked every Christian belief and ceremony.

  And so troubled minds abounded at 3AM. Jeremy had certainly awakened to the noise resulting at that satanic hour emanating from Parris’ room.

  “Aye, we’re all a bit crazy at that hour, e’en more than at the witching hour.”

  “The stroke of midnight, yes.”

  “Why do you suppose evil spirits and followers of pagan religions and Satan keep to such a rigid time clock, Mr. Wakely?” Ingersoll’s emphasis on Mr. Wakely was said with a wink.

  “Ah, a test of my studies, Deacon?”

  “Just a question to a budding minister and spiritual guide is all.”

  Jeremy smiled at the deacon’s addressing him as a spiritual guide. “Perhaps it’s allowed by our Maker as He allows Satan to roam among us—to drive us into temptation, to test our mettle as they say?”