Children of Salem

by Robert W. Walker

  “No, none, but Noyes has one strong trait—ambition.”

  “Father will take this news badly.”

  “From the beginning . . . my first day in Salem, dear, even before arriving, I knew of the factions within Parris’ congregation, but only recently have I had my eyes opened to the fact that Judges Hathorne and Corwin are in the Parris-Putnam camp as well.”

  “Those who intend to run against the judges in the next election stand with our side.”

  “Our side, eh?” Jeremy considered this for a moment. “The witchcraft scare has changed the face of the elections even before they’ve begun.”

  Her laugh was hollow and angry. “You mean who’s going to vote for Francis Nurse or any of his cronies so long as his wife is jailed as a witch?”

  He nodded solemnly. “So your father was planning to run for Corwin’s seat?”

  “Yes.”

  “And even should they come to their senses and release your mother—”

  “The taint of having been accused, arrested, excommunicated and humiliated would follow her, and Father, I know.”

  “And her family, you and me! No matter the real issues as in where Corwin and Hathorne stood during the Andros years.”

  “When will it end, Jeremy? When will they come to their senses?”

  He smiled and held her close. They shared a warm kiss and turned to walk to the porch, arms locked.

  Finally, Jeremy said, “I’m afraid that fat-headed Governor Andros filled positions of state with clergymen, and this has led to widespread abuse of power. Sir William Stoughton is shaping up as a fine example.”

  Overhearing from his rocker on the porch, Francis added, “Andros men used the clergy in shrewd measure. Whenever any person was excommunicated from the church, they were typically prosecuted for some exaggerated real offense simultaneously.”

  “Evening to you, sir.” Jeremy took off his hat with a flourish. “Know you that the elder Mather, Increase, like myself—and many another man—wants a safe division of church and state, so that such fiends as Andros must never again wield such power over us.”

  “But here it comes again, Jeremiah,” countered Francis. “Andros had declared whole tracts of land his on the basis of bogus trials, overturning original land grants. A circumstance that made many a magistrate and minister wealthy.”

  “I see the parallels, yes, but we must believe it can’t occur again.”

  “Increase Mather himself rose to prominence and great power and influence in the colonies due to the marriage of church and state,” concluded Francis.

  “But he abhors the abuses he’s witnessed, especially those committed during the Andros era. He is a man with foresight, who sees the future cannot sustain a theocracy on these shores.”

  “I am a simple man, Jeremiah, but what is happening in Salem with these church excommunications and courtroom trials, this is pure theocracy of the deadliest sort.”

  “It may’s well be another Papal State!” cried out Serena. “And we can all become Papists if they can run their own bloody Inquisition here.”

  This made the men laugh.

  “Why do you find that funny?”

  “Because it is so true,” replied Jeremy.

  “Because it is either laugh or cry,” added Francis.

  “Besides, Serena, you are so beautiful when you’re angry.”

  “Remember on your firs return home, Jeremy?” asked Francis. “Serena holding you at bay at gunpoint?”

  Again the men laughed. Serena frowned, turned, and stomped inside.

  # # # # #

  At the meetinghouse, the following Sabbath Day, little Anne Putnam Junior shouted above Mr. Parris’ sermon, “Why does God punish the unborn? Tell me that, Mr. Parris!” Anne’s tone was both authoritative and accusatory.

  Parris stared blankly at the sickly, thin child who’d suffered so much harm from the invisible agents of Satan. “Anne,” he finally responded, coming around the podium, “you know the answer to that as well as anyone here.”

  Mercy Lewis, as if on cue, stood up and spread her arms wide, pleading, “Mr. Parris, why does God allow Satan to have his own kingdom?”

  Parris stammered something unintelligible and was cut off by little Anne’s screaming, “Where are my brothers and sisters who died before being baptized? Where is Hopestill’s soul now? William, Henry Junior, Matthew, Luke, all of them?”

  Parris composed himself, but then one of his adult congregation asked, “Why don’t you answer these children?”

  Parris stared hard at John Tarbell, a relative of the Nurse family. It was a clear challenge.

  “And where is Tituba’s child’s soul?” shouted Mercy Lewis.

  Parris’s jaw quivered with rage at this. How does Mercy know about the child in Barbados, he wondered.

  “She told me,” continued Mercy, “that she never once saw her dead child, not ever!”

  “The child was born deformed and dead!” Parris retreated to his podium. “Tituba was only your age then. She didn’t need to see it; it’d’ve done no good. As to the child’s soul—same as with Anne’s brothers and sisters, same as with any who’re un-baptized— every child knows. So say it with me.”

  Several adults shouted at once, “Their souls belong to Perdition!”

  “And as such—” continued Parris—“out of our hands!”

  A chorus of men and women in the pews shouted, ”Amen.”

  Others sat unmoved.

  Parris sighed heavily at the unmoved people in particular. He picked up his hourglass and turned it over. “It appears we need another hour’s worth of his wisdom.”

  After a few muffled groans, the congregation made up its mind to stay.

  “Just as the child is born with the mark of Cain, Original Sin, these facts we have no power to change,” the minister spoke extemporaneously. “So too the unborn child has this mark and cannot escape the sinful condition to which it is born. Death, not even stillborn death, nor death by foul means, or murder by demonic interference can expel the mark of Cain, no!”

  Most in the congregation sent up an uproar of amen’s that covered the few groans. The majority these days followed Mr. Parris’ remarks slavishly and silently, save for little Anne Putnam who began a low, growling chant.

  “Death does not discount the Book of the Lamb.” Parris leaned heavily into his podium. “Death does not offer an escape unless you are among the chosen!”

  More halleluiahs and amen’s.”

  “The chosen of God.”

  “How do you know they weren’t chosen of God before they were born?” asked Anne Junior. “Which means, they could be in heaven right now?” Anne’s glassy stare stopped the minister from another word.

  Finally, Parris replied, “God saves the humble, Anne, and the meek shall inherit the earth. There is no one among us who can know who is chosen and who is not. Not even your minister.”

  “What about us?” asked Mercy Lewis, standing beside Anne now. “If we’ve been given this gift of sight . . . if we are now seers into the Invisible World of angels and demons, then mightn’t . . . I mean perhaps we are the chosen!”

  Everyone in the meetinghouse silently considered this, none more so than Parris himself.

  “Then it was even more glorious than we had thought, Mercy Lewis,” Parris calmly replied, “when on that day under Deacon Putnam’s roof when I banished the devil residing within you. Remember that day.”

  “Yes! Yes, sir. I shall never forget it, Uncle.”

  “I’m not asking if you remember; I am telling you to always remember.”

  She shouted as if on cue, “It truly is a miracle of miracles you’ve performed, Reverend Uncle Parris!”

  Parris saw the eyes of his congregation settle on him in wonder. “How long have I been your spiritual leader?” he asked them, coming away from the podium again. He awaited no answer. “And how long have some among you, the dissenting brethren among you, denied my sincerity and denounced my character?”
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  A general consensus followed as many of the so-called ‘dissenting brethren’ had days before, with the excommunication of Rebecca Nurse, left the congregation. Now the remnants of them had quietly inched from the meetinghouse, never to return.

  # # # # #

  Some of these final holdouts among the dissenting brethren still going to Parris’ sermons—like John Tarbell—went directly to Francis Nurse’s house, daring to report on Mr. Parris’ new role as leader of the seer children, the afflicted girls who’d become cause for celebrity, and gifts, and attention by adults who days before had treated them as invisible members of society—people to fetch their water, scrub their floors, wipe the noses of their children.

  The Eastys, the Cloyses, the Prescotts, the Russells, the Tabells, and many of the Proctors stood as the last remaining adult members of the village who questioned the seer children of Salem Village, and their ability to see into and interpret the Invisible World of Satan. But they had too soon and suddenly found themselves no longer among the silent majority of those who stood by, said and did nothing. They were now in the vocal minority.

  A minority finding itself making up the bulk of names on arrest warrants. Warrants now coming at a head-spinning pace, and now being executed by the new Sheriff, Herrick.

  Chapter Ten

  The following Sabbath Day

  Jeremiah, Serena, her brothers, uncles, aunts and many in the families of the ‘dissenting brethren’ went about attempting to appeal to the good judgment and reason of neighbors far and wide, in and around Salem; they carried petitions with them, the acceptable practice of the day.

  Enough names on a petition had worked in times past with the magistrates and the ministers in their church courts. They petitioned primarily on behalf of Mother Nurse, to revoke her excommunication and her arrest as an impossible wrong done this saintly wife, mother, and neighbor who’d lived all her life under the rule of her Bible and the teachings of Christ. They also petitioned on behalf of Elizabeth Proctor who’d been determined pregnant and sitting in the same damnably awful dungeon as Mother Nurse, the Salem Village jailhouse operated by Weed Gatter to whom they must pay a daily growing tax for his part in taking care of their daily needs.

  However, so far as anyone could tell, the petitions were failing to reach anyone who supported Nurse and his family in this their hour of need. Those courageous enough to sign were among the well-defined ‘dissenters’—enemies of Parris.

  Young Benjamin Nurse worked to control his anger and frustration by shouting at the other Nurse men that these petitions proved useless against what they’d begun to call the Village Madness. Ben was right, but worse yet, some of the names on these petitions were next targeted—seen as being a wee bit too helpful to the accused.

  Those signers seen as anxious to help out the accused were being viewed as if they might be in covenant with the accused rather than simply related or lifetime friends. In fact, blood relation to an accused proved enough for a person to fall under suspicion. After suspicion came accusation, followed by an arrest warrant, followed by yet another imprisonment.

  Daily now, Serena insisted on going down to the jail to give support and food through the bars to her mother, and Jeremiah stood watch and took the measure of the prison Mother Nurse found herself in. It would take little to storm the place, overpower Gatter, free Mother Nurse and anyone else within, but it would require a plan of escape, a plan of flight to a whole new place, as far from Salem as one could get—perhaps a ship in the harbor bound for the Netherlands.

  Discussions of how to accomplish such a feat had begun at the Nurse home, and just when these discussions were taking root and men emboldened, news came that Reverend George Burroughs had been dragged back to Salem to stand trial before the judges for his leading these witches in their sinister attack on the village children where he, Burroughs, had once ‘ministered’—or rather used a guise as minister to recruit Satanists.

  “A familiarity there to you, Jeremy,” said Ben, staring a hole through him.

  “I admit, it’s too close for comfort.”

  “You could be the subject of a warrant any day.”

  “As could you, Ben—as could any one of us.”

  Ben stood eye to eye with Jeremy. He’d been a small boy when Jeremy had left ten years before, but now he was a young man full of passion and anger for those who’d wronged his father and maligned his mother. The young man had intense, smoldering eyes, and what seemed a perpetual snarl took turns with a frown and a pout.

  “Leave Jeremy alone, Ben,” scolded Francis. “He’s risked himself for your mother more than once.”

  “Risked himself? How? By hiding out in Boston, while we, who have no skills in the law must face these outrages?”

  “Ben, I’m afraid with Mr. Higginson’s passing,” Jeremy began as he stared into the fire, “and with Reverend Increase Mather the other side of the Atlantic, reason and sanity has left the colony, and no amount of good sense and counter argument will do.”

  “Then perhaps it is time to put an end to talk.”

  Serena, her father, and several of Ben’s brothers and brothers-in-law all took turns to calm Ben.

  “Time to take action, and put an end to Mother’s suffering!”

  “Shut up, Ben!” shouted Francis. “I’ve told y’all what I promised Rebecca!”

  The others looked on in silent counsel, save for Serena. “He’s right, Ben is, Father! No promise is worth this pain and suffering!”

  “You’ll not go against your mother’s wishes. She wishes to—“

  “Salvage the land, I know. We all know that!” Serena’s tears came freely. “You all’ve had such thoughts. Believe me, I know, because I have too.”

  “If you’re too old for this, Tarbell, Cloyse, just stay out of our way,” Ben shouted at his uncles.

  “You think you know what’s on our minds, Ben, Serena?” shouted Tarbell, standing to his full height. “Then I’ll tell you. To end this matter, bloodshed is inevitable.”

  “Someone’s finally said it,” added Jeremy. “I hadn’t wanted to be the one, being an outsider. But it may be our only way.”

  “We’ll discuss it, come to a consensus, and possibly a plan of action, then,” said Francis who felt his hold on his sons and brothers-in-law slipping. He added, “Then and only then do we take action that might bring about blood.”

  # # # # #

  From out her window, Anne Putnam Senior watched the home fires burning out at the Nurse compound; the torches and lamps had burned late into the night since the Nurse witch, Rebecca, had been arrested, put through the ordeal of excommunication, and bound over for trial. Anne had been certain to have her daughter witness the woman’s humiliation and downfall. She’d prayed for it for years. The property nowadays referred to as Nurse-Towne Farms ought to have gone to Thomas—her husband—and would have had Towne not remarried after Thomas’ grandmother had died.

  Another suspicious death.

  Rebecca Nurse’s father, Jacob Towne, had been Thomas’ stepfather, but late in life, he’d remarried, become a Goodman to that Easty woman. This marriage secured the land for three daughters borne of the Towne-Easty union. One had been Rebecca Towne, who’d become Rebecca Nurse when the witch had taken Francis Nurse as her husband.

  And now? To learn from the spirits afflicting her—for some twenty years—that their message, however garbled, translated into the murder of her every child, save the one—Anne Junior. How terribly coincidental, as none of the midwives of that Towne-Nurse-Easty crowd had overseen Anne Junior’s birth, yet they’d been among the concerned hot-water brigade during the deaths of the other children. They had been on hand with hidden deadly weapons—as Anne had been told by Henry.

  She looked from the lights out at the Nurse home to the sky with its onrush of storm clouds to the small black-haired head of her daughter knitting quietly away across the room. She still wondered if her only daughter left would live to marriageable age, if she would bear her gr
andchildren to replace the lost ones. She wondered if the child had inherited the cursed womb.

  She’d been giving more thought to it all, not the least being that her own womb had brought into the world children who’d withered and died like unnourished flowers. She wondered if she and little Anne would ever know any happiness in this world.

  She’d heard the news of Serena Nurse’s having married that imposter Jeremiah Wakely. She trembled when recalling how that man, a liar, cheat, and a thief had stood right here in her home alongside the noble, caring Reverend Parris, all the while involved in a charade.

  Perhaps he’s a disciple of Burroughs. If so, then a disciple of Satan. If so, then the Nurse’s youngest daughter, was now locked in matrimony to a follower of Satan. With mother a witch and husband a Satanist, what must Serena herself be? Her pleasant smile notwithstanding?

  Why didn’t my dead brother’s ghost tell me the truth sooner? Why, indeed, she wondered, glancing anew at the expanse of land deeded over to the clan she’d instinctively hated all these years—and now I know the reason why. She looked again on her sweet if feeble Anne, and she saw that Anne placed an arm around Mercy’s neck and hugged the now cleansed and gifted Mercy who’d been returned to their home since bravely exposing that Bishop woman for what she was.

  Anne saw that her daughter exhibited a small measure of happiness tonight, perhaps for the first time in her life. Anne Senior exhibited a newfound pride in both her daughter and herself—and even for Mercy Lewis. And why not?

  Why not feel pride indeed? After all, she’d given birth to a child capable of seeing into the Invisible World . . . and for that matter, although she’d never thought of her night terrors as either a blessing or a gift, they were indeed just that now that they’d become so clearly interpreted. Once the language of her spectral visitors—brother Henry and the stillborn children—had finally come clear, that they were pointing their dead fingers at their killers, Mrs. Putnam realized she, too, had been seeing into the Invisible World. She too was gifted, a seer like her child who’d led her to this conclusion. What was the line in the Bible? And the children shall lead them.