Children of Salem

by Robert W. Walker

  The storm roiled and tumbled overhead and all around the dark little village homes. Is it coming for me? Anne Carr Putnam wondered. Or is it come for Little Anne? “Something is coming. Coming for us all,” she spoke to herself and to her sleeping husband, drunk again. He’d come in talking of witchcraft, gibberish mostly. He’d the smell of canary wine on him. He spoke of readying the militia and rallying men to fight the invisible forces of Satan, which he said had laid claim to the parsonage house and to Betty Parris’ little soul. Drunken sot is what the dead children have made of him, she thought, and what’ve they made of me?

  Thomas grunted and muttered, “Wh-aaa?” then rolled over, sending up a snore that might as well be Satan’s own grunt, so awful and long and disgusting was it.

  “God, God how I hate this life! What it has brought me to. I hate you, Thomas Putnam, and I hate that child we bore together, and I hate the dead.”

  Anne Carr Putnam suddenly felt a courageous urge to go out into the storm and shake her fists at the sky, and to dare God strike her down and thereby take her to whatever reward or punishment set down in His book—whatever fate preordained. She wanted it damned well over with. Right now, this night.

  But each time she maneuvered to this tentative resolve to end her own life, she couldn’t move as a cold chill entered her bones and her bedroom, and it hovered not over the entire bed, disturbing Thomas not in the least, but hovering just over and around her, and inside her. She felt completely alone. And she knew herself to be haunted, but this was nothing new. She’d been haunted by her dead brother, Henry, for years before the deaths of her children. In Henry’s hoary wake followed a parade of dead children. Sometimes individually they came, sometimes en mass. They never spoke as they had no language. They’d never uttered a single word in life, so why should it be different in death? However, they did accuse her; they accused with their innocent, cherubic grimaces, their flaccid but condemning eyes, their reproachful, pointed fingers. No words came of those gaping mouths, but she knew what they wanted to say; that it was all her fault, all due to what she’d done and said and thought about one James Bailey.

  This—her sin of sins—had transformed her womb. What was normally the cradle of life was reconfigured into a poisonous mausoleum.

  Even so, this was not the children come to torment her tonight. Nor was it Henry. This was a different presence also well known to her. She imagined James Bailey must have died over the years, as this spirit was James’ ghost, and it wanted in death to claim what he’d in life denied himself and her—his absolute and unconditional love of Anne Carr, the young woman she’d once been.

  For James, she could forgo any date with God and being struck by lightning. She instead lay still and allowed the blond-haired spirit to caress her with his spectral body, filling her with emotions and a heat she’d not experienced in all her married life with Thomas.

  # # # # #

  Anne Carr Putnam came fully awake and bolt upright when her orgasm came rushing from the pelvic regions to her brain. She found herself lying with her nightshirt pulled up, her privates exposed, the covers pulled over—not by Thomas, but by James’s spectral hand. He’d come to her again, and he’d made her feel again, and he’d whispered something as lilting and as fragile as a leaf in wind, something about his child and the others that’d died between her legs. A special message of importance . . . something of forgiveness, something like: don’t blame yourself; not your fault; don’t believe it. But she could hardly focus on his whisper as his touch had driven her to such abandon, and she licked her fingers that’d come wet from her vagina.

  She shivered with all that’d happened tonight amid the storm. She snatched down her nightshirt and pulled the covers over her, content for the moment, certain the contentment would quickly fade, and it did. However, she knew James would be back, that he’d return again to her, that he wanted her to have a healthy child with her. As insane as it sounded, he made it clear: Little Anne is my child. The only one of ten to survive from Anne’s womb.

  She smiled at the revelation that all her failed pregnancies had come as a result not of the usual complications or her womb, but of Thomas’ bad seed. James told her the man was no stallion, but that he, Bailey had more powerful seed in an astral fashion than Thomas had in a corporeal one! This thanks to James’ powers; powers that extended beyond the grave, as James had died—the news reported about the village several years ago, news that had come with the new minister, Burroughs.

  Anne now heard James’ whisper within the coils of her inner ear, as if his spirit had taken up residence inside her: Little Anne, say it.

  “Say what?” she asked aloud.

  She alone is mine . . . mine and yours.

  “Anne is ours!” The revelation sent her heart beating fast.

  The others, those who died, they’re come of Thomas’ pitiful seed.

  Still she could not make out the part about it not being her fault.

  But for the moment, she reveled in what James could do to her and for her, even now after all these years and an entire dimension between them.

  “And to feel not one whit of guilt!” she shouted, her voice carrying through the door and the ceiling to the girls upstairs, yet Thomas could sleep through it. She laid still, luxuriating in James’ earlier ethereal touch and the revelations he’d brought with his touch. Her dead brother Henry, all these years, he’d been trying to tell her the same news, sure. Sure. Now it’s come clear why I am haunted.

  Laughter erupted from her. Unabashed, unleashed. To others it may well sound like the laughter of the mad. As for Thomas beside her, he continued to snore. He’d become so enamored of her night visitors and her erupting in either screams or laughter that her bedtime antics disturbed him no more than did God’s thunder just outside.

  # # # # #

  The following day in the village

  Jeremiah had gotten back to the parsonage the night before at so late an hour as to have found everyone fast asleep, and not wishing to disturb the house, he’d discovered the stable empty, and bedding down his horse, he decided to sleep here. He had given only slight curiosity to the whereabouts of Tituba, but he had been far too weary to concern himself beyond a thought. The night’s storm had abated somewhat when, shadowing Serena, he’d seen that she’d indeed gotten safely back home. From the Nurse home, he’d ridden back to the village, the euphoria of having made love to Serena crowding out every other thought.

  Asleep in the hay this morning, dreaming of Serena and undisturbed by the mewling of animals and chickens clucking about him, Jeremy was rudely awakened by the booting of one Reverend Samuel Parris, insisting that the young apprentice go with him once again to the troubled Putnam home.

  Jeremy, eyes still encrusted with sleep, brushing away straw from his clothes as they went, asked in a tone reminiscent of Mrs. Parris on the subject of the Putnams: “What is it this time?”

  “Appears a regular demon inside that niece of mine.”

  “Mercy or Mary?”

  “Mercy. They’ve evidence she’s corrupting their daughter, Anne.”

  “Corrupting? How?”

  “Please, sir, don’t be naïve. How do you imagine?”

  “Ah, I see.” Jeremy knew that corruption was a euphemism for any sexual contact outside of a man’s bearing children with his wife. Something he himself was guilty of now, but if this feeling for what he and Serena had was corrupt, then he privately asked for more corruption.

  They arrived at the Putnam doorstep, the trip uneventful—no street altercation between Parris and Goode or any other of his parishioners—and Jeremy, still woozy from lack of sleep and all that’d happened the night before, thanked God for that. Even now set on this grave business at this grim house, all he could think of were the welcoming arms of his love.

  At the same time, facing the stout Putnam door before them, Jeremy again wondered at the noticeable absence of Tituba Indian from the barn, and now the seeming disappearance of the old bottle collect
or, a typical sight about Salem streets this time of day, as it was early mornings that Goode went about trash piles. However, Jeremy believed it wise to not bring up either ‘lady’ at the moment.

  Mrs Putnam opened the door this time, dark circles like gray coal sludge deepening her sad eyes. Inside the cramped little Putnam home, Thomas and his wife had the two girls standing at attention and awaiting the ministers. Parris immediately took charge, going to Mercy and pinning her by the ear. He began not a lecture but an exorcism of sorts so far as Jeremy could see.

  Parris first made the girl kneel before the fire, then to stare hard into the flames. So close was Mercy’s face to the hearth fire that her skin glowed and reddened.

  “The devil loves fire, Mercy! The devil wants to boil all of us in his churning sea of flame and brimestone, and you, child, are well on your way! Confess now of your sins, Mercy, and be done with it!”

  “I didn’t do nothin’ to confess!” Mercy defiantly cried out, despite the heat so close to her cheeks and eyes as to make Jeremy fear a cinder might blind her.

  “Confess and Satan can do no harm!”

  Putnam took this up like a chant. “Confess! Confess and the Devil himself can do you no harm! Parris held her by the neck now, the flames licking closer toward Mercy as if curious and interested in the child. “Through contrition and pleading God’s merciful help, we rid you of this devil plaguing you!”

  “Leave her alone!” shouted the scrawny, bird-legged Anne Junior, rushing at Jeremiah and grabbing his hand, pleading, “Don’t hurt Mercy! She’s my only friend! Please don’t let them hurt her!”

  This prompted Jeremy to intervene. “Reverend, you’ll blind the child so near to the flames!”

  “Then blind she’ll be if necessary!” he shouted back. “Whatever it takes to rid the devil that plays within’er!”

  “She’s a child, sir!”

  “A possessed child!” He pushed Jeremy out of his way and forced Mercy’s already reddened face back toward the flames. “We have my black servant and old Goode under lock and key for bringing this child and others to Satan! So don’t interfere, Mr. Wakely!”

  “Tituba? Goode, locked away?” Jeremy asked. “But I saw Goode only last night wandering about the storm like a mad-hatter.”

  “Williard rounded her up. Warrants’ve been sworn out against the two of ’em!”

  Mercy’s singed hair filled the room with a bad odor, and Mercy began a horrid screaming as her torso and face felt the flames, even as burning embers from the hearth continued to sizzle her long, red hair. Jeremy rushed back to snatch the crazed Parris off the child when suddenly Mercy began a ratcheting, stuttering growl that came up from deep within, and she suddenly began gasping, her body heaving and convulsing until vomit spewed forth in a rich brown gruel looking like something dredged from an outhouse.

  The Putnams and little Anne had jumped back, and Jeremy held himself in check, but Parris grabbed Mercy by the neck and pushed the girl’s face toward her own vomit and shouted, “There! There it is in its raw, ugly form! The demon has leapt into the flames, leaving a vile residue of itself!”

  Mercy continued spitting and spewing and attempted to pull away from her uncle’s grasp.

  “Enough!” Jeremy shouted.

  “Thom! Get the dustbin and sweeper!” Parris’ huge hands flew about his head like two angry birds.

  Putnam shouted, “What?”

  “Do it! Sweep the vile stuff up and cast it into the flames after the source that your home be rid of it! The smoke will take it up and out the chimney, man!”

  Putnam, fearful, stood with dustbin and broom, shaking. Mrs. Putnam grabbed these items from her husband. “For God’s sake, Thomas! I’ll do it.”

  Do-as-Parris-says appeared the watchword here, and Jeremiah caught his glare, as he had dared to interfere. Parris still held Mercy in his grasp, and he spoke to Mrs. Putnam as she ‘handled’ the demonic residue, working it into the black dustbin, careful not to come into contact with the brown gruel.

  Parris told her, “Leave not a trace of it in your home!”

  Parris, triumphant the moment Anne Carr Putnam cast the vile juices of Satan into the flames, finally released Mercy, who, simpering and panting, her face scorched by the fames, crawled into a corner in the manner of a frightened animal. Young Anne took tentative steps toward Mercy, but her mother swiftly lifted the black, wrought iron dustbin like a stout wall between the two children. Mother Putnam then asked, “Reverend Parris, do you think now that it is safe for these two children to hug as normal children might?”

  “I do not think so, Goodwife Putnam. I know so. You saw for yourself the result of my exorcism of the demon. Poor Mercy, all this time misunderstood and maligned.” He patted her red head several times, Mercy flinching with each touch.

  Thomas straightened as if at attention. “Seen it with our own eyes, even your apprentice can attest to it, right, Mr. Wakely?”

  Jeremy sucked in a deep breath of air, frustrated as the superstition of the backwoods people and how adroitly Parris played this instrument. “Yes, yes, Goodman Putnam. We all saw it.”

  Something in his tone caught Mrs. Putnam’s ire. “Did you not, Mr. Wakely?”

  Back to the wall on the point, Jeremy, knowing he must remain the doting apprentice a little longer, nodded as vigorously as he could muster, but at the same time, he could muster no sincere words of agreement.

  “Rest assured, this child is without an evil bone now,” came Parris’ final word on the subject. He then shook Putnam’s hand and bowed to Mrs. Putnam. With a quick glance at Mercy, still in a ball in the corner with Anne holding her, Parris bid the family adieu. Jeremy, too, glanced back at the sad little scene of the two girls in the corner. They had the look of a pair of trapped animals.

  On the street and in public view, Samuel Parris lambasted Jeremiah, shouting at the top of his lungs. “You are here to back me up, not to challenge my—”

  “I’m sorry, but I feared the girl’s hair afire, sir!”

  “Quiet! I’ve not finished.”

  “Sorry, sir.” Jeremy fell silent, thinking, how much more cow-towing to this miscreant can I stomach?

  “You weren’t sent here to undermine, to question or raise doubt, or—”

  “But isn’t it in the nature of theology to ques—”

  “Never! Not in my philosophy are you to-to knowingly challenge my word or my procedure, to destabilize, demoralize or dishearten or deflate my efforts, Jer—Mr. Wakely! Is that clear?”

  “Sir, I am not one of your servants!”

  “You are my apprentice, which by definition makes you my inferior, young man, and if I deem you a servant, then you shall be a servant—”

  “I serve only God, sir,” he retaliated, immediately sorry but he could not stop himself. “God and truth! And what I saw inside the Putnam home is—was—hardly truth. More like a parlor trick.”

  Parris took him aside and between two buildings for more privacy. “Aye, to some degree, yes, I confess. A parlor trick as you call it, but Jeremy, you see its effectiveness. Its efficacy, my boy! You must see that!”

  “Then you agree with me?” asked Jeremy, his jaw set.

  Parris frowned at this. Then he gave out with a light, birdlike chuckle. “I suppose I do. That is to say, yes, we do agree on something at last.”

  “To use such superstitions, Mr. Parris, it can only, in the long run, perpetuate superstitious notions and misleading beliefs.”

  “Damn it man, can you for a fact say that the devil is not the root cause of illness in body, mind, and soul?”

  “No, but by the same token—”

  “That the Sly One is not behind all corruption?”

  “—but in terrifying children—”

  “Can you say it is not so?”

  “No, but—”

  “Not our finest physicians, judges, or theologians know the answer to that—not even Increase Mather. I’ve read his sermons!”

  Jeremy gritted hi
s teeth, but to end the friction over this event, he quietly nodded and muttered, “Agreed, sir.”

  They continued homeward, Parris slapping Jeremy on the back now. “Just in future, man, always, always back me up.”

  “Yes, of course.” Jeremy must maintain his cover, but it tasted like bile.

  “Good, good. You’re about to have another opportunity to back me, Goodfriend, sooner than you realize.”

  “Oh? Has it to do with the Goode woman and Tituba Indian being arrested?”

  “It has all to do with those two conniving wenches and the problems plaguing both this parish and my house.”

  “Can you be more precise, sir?”

  “I’m afraid somehow—I know not precisely how—they have poisoned Betty.”

  “Poisoned?” Now Jeremy stopped Parris, taking hold of his arm.

  “Poisoned her small body, her mind, and perhaps her soul.”

  “But I thought it just a recurrence of her fever, the ague?”

  “The doctor is with her now.”

  “Do you really suspect Tituba of harming your child?”

  “I do. I do indeed now.”

  Even as he asked, Jeremy recalled the likeness of Betty in Goode’s possession. “But to poison a minister’s daughter?”

  “Brazen, I know. I fear Tituba, in league with Goode, meant some tainted food for me, but Betty ingested it instead.”

  “But I’ve watched Tituba with the child, and she seems to love her.”

  “As I said, it was likely an accident, the poison meant for me, but now I fear Tituba’s gone completely over . . . in league with Goode, I tell you. Joined to harm me through the child.”

  “I find it so hard to believe.”

  “There is ample evidence, and who better than one with access to my morning and evening meal?”

  “Evidence? Do you have the tainted food?”

  “Better yet, I have Tituba’s confession.”

  “She’s confessed to harming the girl?”