Children of Salem

by Robert W. Walker

  “We can’t do that, Mother!” Serena firmly said, the blunderbuss still in hand.

  “You can and you will. I will not have any of you harmed, Serena. Besides, this is no surprise, as you say—brewing for many years.”

  Jeremy raised a hand to the upset family. “So this witchcraft accusation against Mother Nurse is their latest expedient, but we have cards to play as well. Look, we need to get word to Boston.” He held up a piece of paper. “The authorities in Boston must be informed.”

  “You do that, Mr. Wakely,” said Rebecca, sarcasm tingeing her voice.

  “What is this you have, Jeremy?” asked Serena of the flurrying parchment in his hand.

  “I made a copy, word for word!”

  “Parris’ sermon?”

  Francis’ eyes lit up. “The one you left with Corwin and Hathorne?”

  “The very same.”

  “Good man!” exclaimed Francis.

  Serena grabbed Jeremy by the arm and tugged him into a kiss on the cheek.

  Mother Nurse muttered solemnly, “Then take our sore village news to Boston and plead for better men to come in and take over the courts here, Jeremiah, and challenge Mr. Parris, and throw him from our midst, as you would fulfill a prophetic dream of all in this house.” Rebecca paused over her tea. “It’s a dream I’d love to see bear fruit, but I remain skeptical.”

  “What other recourse have we?” he countered while Serena and Francis looked over Parris’ sermon naming Mother Nurse a witch to be excommunicated. “We’ve no time to waste. I’ll ride for Boston tonight.”

  “You will do no such thing,” the elderly woman now chastised her guest. “I hear thunder in the distance.”

  “I suspect it’s Mr. Putnam and the militia, firing off that damn cannon again.” Francis helplessly watched the good China jump.

  “Still, it’s a moonless night.” Rebecca motioned for more tea. “And there’re highwaymen at work on such nights. You go tomorrow with the sun in your face.”

  “As always, Mother is right,” said Francis, hugging her to him even as she sat. “She has always been my guide. The brains around here.” He laughed, his wife laughed, Serena tried to laugh, but it fell flat as she returned Jeremy’s copy of the villainous sermon, and then she set aside the gun for the teapot. Jeremy managed a smile at this.

  “I suspect we are all safe tonight,” said Francis, now calmed it seemed by his wife’s demeanor. “Can’t see the sheriff and his men coming out at this hour.”

  “Not even to please Sam Parris?” Serena half-joked.

  “All the same, you must each promise me here and now that if—and when—they come,” began Rebecca, “because they will come as sure as I am before you, that you will not lift a finger to resist them.” This made them all stare at Rebecca. “Promise! You must all promise me now! Serena? Francis? Jeremiah?”

  “It’s Ben you need worry about,” countered Francis.

  “It’s why I sent him away to Connecticut to buy that fool machine he wants for lumbering.” Ben had long wanted to start his own lumber mill.

  “Clever old girl,” muttered Francis.

  “Promise me!” she erupted.

  Francis, his voice dripping with reluctance, finally said, “I already made promise.”

  Serena refused to make any such promise, making it clear that she could not. When her mother insisted, she ran outside and onto the porch, Jeremy pursuing. Under the stars, he held her close. “I’m sorry to bring such news to your home, Serena, to disturb the peace of your lives, but I thought you all must be warned, including your aunts and uncles.”

  From inside, they heard Mother Nurse shout, “Jeremiah, Serena! I shall hold you to your word, each of you.”

  Again the night fell silent, and Jeremy kissed Serena passionately. She returned his kiss and held him tight. Then they heard the murmurs of her parents inside.

  “What are they saying?” Jeremy asked her.

  Serena wiped away tears and sniffled. Mother’s praying everyone in Salem, and for the family, for us all, including you.”

  “Peace, she’s asking for,” Jeremy said, catching a few words now.

  “Peace,” Serena sneered. “When have we ever known peace in this parish?”

  “I wish I could make this all go away, Serena; you know that I love you, and I only want the best for you and your family.”

  “Nothing to be done tonight,” she muttered, her hands clasped in his.

  “Nothing?”

  “Hold me.”

  “Done.”

  Chapter Two

  Jeremiah and Serena shared the swing porch, and after a quick glimpse around to be certain no one was peeking out at them, they shared several more passionate kisses. Sometime later, she arranged for him to sleep in Ben’s room as a guest of the Nurse family.

  Jeremy spent a fitful night’s rest, certain that Serena had even less sleep, so deep was her fear for her mother’s safety. Samuel Parris had transformed from an awkward, bumbling, rude and obnoxious minister to the earthly embodiment of evil itself. “Satan transformed,” as Serena had put it. An apt summation, even if you didn’t believe Satan capable of walking the earth. Evil certainly did. And evil so often took a pleasing shape, and if not a pleasing form then an everyday, dull, ordinary one, one so mundane as to be ignored or shooed off without being given a thought, and in that lack of interest or thought, it struck like a viper. Too oft ignored for too long—as in this case, Jeremy thought even as he awoke the next day and found himself in young Ben Nurse’s bed. Ben was younger than Serena by a year, but he thought himself a wise old man, taking after his father. Even when they were all children, Ben could not be controlled, and it had been wise to get him out of the vicinity. Surely, Rebecca knew her brood.

  Jeremy stood nude, feeling good that he had for the first time since arriving in Salem been comfortable enough to sleep in his skin alone; he’d not once felt comfortable enough in the Parris home to do so. He now stretched and examined his body before a bureau mirror. Fearful of a paunch that seemed to be overtaking him, he did twenty pushups and fifty sit-ups to prepare for the difficult journey ahead by horseback. He did all this quietly in an attempt to wake no one.

  He then quickly dressed, feeling better prepared for the hard ride necessary this morning than he had been the night before. He wrote out a note to Serena and her parents, explaining that’d he’d gotten out before dawn to make haste, and that none should worry about him.

  So far, so good. The house remained silent, the only noise a simmering ember at the big hearth as Jeremy passed when a loose board reported his heft atop it.

  He slipped out and onto the porch, gently closing the door, his saddlebag over his shoulder—the copy of Parris’ sermon that he’d made tucked within. Now more than ever, he must get it to Cotton Mather. But what of Higginson? Should he stop a the First Church of Salem Town to share all that had happened in his absence at Corwin’s the night before? Or should he be better served if Jeremy raced to the doorstep of Cotton Mather?

  He felt the chill morning air on his face while trying to decide, and in the distance a dull gray light spread over the seaport in the distance. Morning minus sunlight, he realized. In fact, there were so many grim and dark clouds covering the sky that it looked made of various grades of pewter. Frowning, Jeremy accepted his fate, that the thunder of the night before had been cannon fire down in the village—Putnam, Ingersoll, and others playing at soldier—and that the April storm had come today. Jeremy would be riding under a downpour and would likely not see any sunshine from here to Boston.

  He made his way to the stables where the night before he’d bedded down Dancer. Jeremy worked to ready the horse for travel, and the animal sensed they would soon be underway when Jeremy removed his feedbag. After saddling up, Jeremy draped the saddlebag across Dancer’s rump and cinched it tight. “Might be a wet trip,” he said to his horse. “But I trust you’ll get me there, girl.”

  “I wish I could go with you,” came Serena’
s voice from behind him. She’d stood silent at the barn door watching him bridle and saddle Dancer, not speaking as he snatched hard at the last cinches to his bags.

  “I didn’t want to wake the house,” he said to her.

  “You weren’t going to leave without saying goodbye!” She rushed at him and together they leaned into Dancer, exchanging a long kiss that she did not wish to have an end to. He wrapped his arms around her, and Dancer looked on, craning his neck.

  “Do you really believe the authorities in Boston will help us, Jeremy? Do you think your going there will change anything?”

  He smiled wide. “I will plea for calm and sanity to prevail, as I have in my letters.”

  “Letters?”

  “I’ve been in correspondence with Cotton Mather since my arrival.”

  “All this time?”

  “All this time, yes.” Even as he assured Serena, he secretly hoped it was not too late to stem the cankerous tide spreading from the village in every direction save the west where only aboriginals lived. Given the state of affairs in the colony, Jeremy felt grateful there were no hostilities with the native Indians nowadays. But the thought revived an old concern of the villagers, one Ingersoll had drummed into Jeremy when he was a boy working as sentinel at Watch Hill: that Salem Village found itself land-locked and unable to grow. Impossible to grow westward without creating hostilities with the natives, impossible to grow north due to Topsfield’s border, Southward Swampscott—useless land for the most part due to the salty backwaters, and East of the dividing line of Ipwsich Road? The Nurse-Towne family compound hugged those valuable waterways.

  “Hold on,” he said to Serena. “Has your father a map of the area?”

  “Indeed, he has many.”

  “One showing the lay of the land—hills, valleys, rivers?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “I must have a detailed map with me when I see Mather. Seeing is believing.”

  “And what kind of man is he Cotton Mather?”

  “A minister like his father, and a man devoted to peace.”

  “I’ll get the map, but I want to know what you’re thinking.”

  “Come along then.”

  They found Francis who’d just roused from sleep, and together they went to his study and pulled forth a detailed map of the entire area. One which illustrated precisely what Jeremiah had thought. The Nurse-Towne properties waved a red flag at the center of the firestorm.

  Jeremiah, Serena and Francis together made enough noise in the house to arouse Mother Nurse who’d surprised them at the doorway, curious as to why they were rummaging in over maps. With the Nurses and Serena looking on, Jeremy pointed out how very isolated Salem Village was. “The village parish, not the seaport,” he added. “Hemmed in on all sides, unless it finds a way to grow. I have it on good authority that Samuel Parris has invested in a mineworks operated by Putnam and Wilkins.”

  “The one that caved in?” asked Francis, surprised.

  “Family business,” Jeremy muttered. “I overheard some remarks passed between Parris and Putnam but thought little of it at the time, but look here. The mine is here at Wills Hill, a short distance to the Frost Fish River but see here?”

  “Our land,” muttered Francis.

  The map clearly showed the Ipswich Road in bold relief. This road and the lines depicting the borders with other villages and Salem Town, and the myriad of rivers connected up in such a way as to eerily mock the shape of the human heart.

  Rebecca pointed this odd fact out to the others, giving them all pause. “Human heart. Where fear and ignorance take root. “The same heart capable of undying love,” she added. “What’re you hatching, Jeremiah Wakely?”

  “I’m pointing out to your husband, ma’am, that your lands are worth everything to the village at large—not just Parris.”

  “Worth everything?”

  “If the village is ever to expand and grown, yes—every material thing.”

  “And they’ll do anything to get our land, I fear,” muttered Francis.

  “I fear so, sir,” said Jeremiah. “May I have the map?”

  “For the fools in Boston?”

  “Yes, for one fool in Boston in particular. To more easily demonstrate our cause.”

  “Take the map,” said Rebecca, “and Jeremiah . . . ”

  “Yes, Mother Nurse?”

  “Take Serena with you.”

  “What?” asked Serena.

  “You’ve never seen Boston,” her mother said, smiling. “Never been beyond Salem Harbor, child.”

  “But Mother, my place is—”

  “Go and be married there, the two of you!” Rebecca’s voice cracked. “I know how you two feel about one another. Your love is written on your faces.”

  “Father?” asked Serena.

  He shrugged. “I saw you on the porch swing.” He giggled.

  “Married? Boston?” repeated Serena. “Don’t be mad. Jeremy hasn’t proposed—besides, if I’m to be wed, it’s a big wedding I want! Surrounded by—”

  “For once, young woman, simply do as I tell you!” Rebecca shouted, causing a pain in her chest that sent a hand to her heart. “Don’t argue, Serena, please. Tell her, Francis!”

  Francis rushed to his wife to support her both physically and in word. “It is obvious you two love one another. Mother is right. Elope to Boston, marry, do what you can about this matter here, Jeremiah, and come back to us safe, and you, young woman--return with the name Wakely.”

  “So that’s it. You want me no longer a Nurse? To hide behind the name Wakely? Even if it were so, I’m a Nurse!”

  “No, child,” said her mother. “We want you away from here at any cost.”

  “Like Ben? No, I won’t hide from a fight.”

  “No one expects you to,” countered Rebecca, sitting now, catching her breath, “but you do love this man and always have, true? Is it not true?”

  Serena felt Jeremy take her hand. “Will you be my wife?” he asked.

  “You like this idea of marrying in Boston?”

  “You’ll love Boston.”

  Serena paced, circling the room. “I don’t know. . . I don’t know.”

  “Don’t know about Boston or about me?” Jeremy again pressed her hand in his.

  “I love you, Jeremy,” she said, their eyes meeting, everyone and everything else in the room melting away, “and-and I accept your proposal of marriage.”

  A cheer went up from Francis and Rebecca, and Jeremy took Serena in his arms. Francis hugged Rebecca to him.

  “But we shan’t tarry long in Boston, Jeremy,” Serena remarked. “We must get back as quickly as possible.”

  “Is that the only condition of marriage you propose?” he joked but instantly saw that she wasn’t amused, and he guessed she was thinking of the empty house on the compound where they’d made love, the one she hoped one day to turn into a home with him. “Yes, it’s a condition. Yes!”

  “I accept your condition. Now we need saddle up another horse.”

  “My roan will do best on a long journey.”

  “When all this nonsense in Salem settles to a dull roar,” promised Francis, “we will have a wedding feast for you two!” He shook Jeremy’s hand briskly and hugged Serena to him, tears in his eyes. Serena went to her mother and they held tight to one another for a long time.

  # # # # #

  Salem Village Parish, Sabbath Day, March 30th

  From behind his slender pinewood pulpit, the gaunt Samuel Parris stood on a platform that raised him above his people. Parris 6’1 frame was now seven-foot tall, and his hapless expression, nose, chin, even his ears and the veins in his neck had been put into play—now part of the anger and rage he demonstrated against those who’d dare attack a minister’s daughter through channels of witchcraft and demonism.

  His eyes, sunken and blackened from days and nights without sleep, seeing to the needs of the congregation while seeing to his bewitched children at home, told the story of a man put upo
n by the Devil himself.

  Parris was disappointed he’d be unable to move to excommunicate Rebecca Nurse and her sisters today. Such action, he’d been advised was premature according to the judges who wished to lay more groundwork and preparation before such accusations as those against the Nurse and Towne women were made official and public. All the same, word got round. Word of what lay in wait on the court docket.

  While the magistrates’ hesitation proved upsetting, Parris believed that the judges were leaning in the direction of his view of things. In fact, Parris felt confident that he had convinced Corwin and Hathorne of their duty once he’d ridded himself and his home of that weasel, Jeremiah Wakely. A traitor, whose sole purpose had been to discredit me, no doubt an agent for Mr. Higginson rather than Increase Mather—whose signature was no doubt now a forgery made by the man’s son—Cotton Mather!

  Parris had revealed these truths to the Salem judges, but what had truly tipped the scales with the judges had been the matter of the old Towne land grant, which had been contested for years. What with the old man having no male heirs and what with the land falling into the hands of three sisters, all of whom married Nurse, Tarbell, and Cloyse men, and not one of them willing to return so much as an acre back to the common holdings of the village; it all added up to two angry and shrewd judges.

  “If any one of these women in that family can be proved a witch . . . ” Parris had led the magistrates to the water.

  Hathorne had nodded, saying, “A-And proved a witch at the time of being heir and assign—”

  “W-When old Jacob Towne passed on,” added Corwin.

  “Then that negates their rights to every bloody acre,” finished Parris the same night as Jeremiah Wakely had knocked him down with his horse—for which he meant to bring charges once he got round to it.

  “Careful of foul words on your tongue, Mr. Parris,” Corwin had cautioned at their last meeting. “Such language can invite the devil in, as they say.”

  Parris had gone away that night secure in the knowledge that the magistrates had as much to gain as he, as Putnam, as others of his faction if and when Rebecca Nurse and her sisters were formally accused, a warrant made, all three arrested, jailed, and brought to his church for the cleansing needed there. The ritual of excommunication had already been performed today with Goodwife Sarah Osborne. Goode had been put through the ritualized outcasting at the time he’d arranged to have her child, Dorcas Goode, removed from her.