# # # # #
Jeremiah found Serena precisely where he imagined he would, at the barred window of Gatter’s filthy hole, a jail not fit for the lowliest pirate in all history, a place a rat would feel uncomfortable in.
Serena’s two baskets lay empty at her feet where she stood, hands clasped by her mother, Rebecca. Jeremy’s first glimpse of Mother Nurse tore at his heart. She was in need of bathing, her hair wild and tangled with dirt, sweat, and heat. The jail, overcrowded as it was, had become a giant oven, but Gatter had allowed Rebecca a moment outside as he determined her safely shackled.
“Go now, children! And don’t come back,” Rebecca was saying to Serena and Ben, who stood with the wagon, his face a mask of anguish.
When Jeremiah came closer, the crooked, bent jailer, Gatter, held a hand up to him. “What business ’ave ye here, Mr. Wakely? Come to join in the tears and wailin’, ’ave ya?” He followed with a belly laugh that jangled his large keys before the laugh turned into a consumptive coughing that doubled the stunted, little man over. He disappeared in this condition with Rebecca in tow by her chains, replacing her in the grimy dark interior, unfastening her chains, and locking the door behind him.
Gatter shook his head at the young Nurses and Wakely as if they were all fools to be here this way with people looking on. He then wandered off to the back of the short stone building that looked like an earthen oven. In Gatter’s wake followed a chorus of wheezing, snorting, and hacking.
Jeremy understood why people believed in trolls, for Gatter was just that. Rumor had it that he remained drunk day and night. Which meant he had a bottle hidden somewhere nearby—likely where he was headed now.
Ben took this opportunity to pull Serena away from their mother, where she stood at the barred window, her hands wrapped about Rebecca’s. Ben pressed one of the guns he’d brought with him through the bars to his mother, but Rebecca refused it, shoving it back at Ben, who missed catching it. The thing hit the ground but thankfully did not go off. Ben picked it up and gave his mother a hard stare. “Take it, Mother. If not to use on Gatter then to put yourself from misery.” When Ben forced it a second time, she threw it back at him and angrily muttered, “I am no coward, Ben. I do this in His name. Now take your sister and go from here and neither to return!”
This time Ben had caught the weapon sent back to him.
“Father always said you were more stubborn than Maplewood.”
“I am strong in my faith.”
Gatter’s cough signaled his position, just around the corner of the oven. Jeremy grabbed the gun from Ben to slip it below his coat just as the jailer reappeared.
“Be off with ya, now, all of ye!” Gatter ordered. “Time’s up with mum! ’Less you’ve got more funds for ol’ Gatter.”
Ben snatched out his loaded pistol and put it against Gatter’s forehead. “I’d like to pay you in full, Mr. Gatter.”
Serena grabbed her brother, shouting, “Stop it, Ben! Stop now!”
“Ben,” began Jeremy over the crying of Rebecca at the window, “think what you’re doing, man!”
“Go home, Ben!” shouted Rebecca. “And don’t come back—either of you, Serena, Ben! And you, Jeremiah Wakley! You let me down. You promised to get my girl out of this place, yet you’re here! You all know my wishes! You’ve all disappointed me! Now go, go!” She disappeared from the window as if the darkness inside had swallowed her.
# # # # #
“How then did it fare with Mrs. Parris, Jeremy?” asked Serena.
“Yes?”asked Francis at the table back at the Nurse home. “Tell me some good news.”
“Mrs. Parris wanted my advice.”
“Really?”
“What advice?” asked Serena.
“For her child, and at my urging, she has taken Betty and left the village.”
“Left the village?”
“And the colony for family far from here.”
“Parris’ wrath will come down on you the moment he hears,” replied Serena.
“Aye, I suppose so. Let it come.”
“He gets those trained monkeys of his repeating your name,” said Ben from the hearth where he crouched and poked at embers, “and you will be roommates with my mother instead of Serena.”
Francis pounded the table. “I tell the both of you, Serena, to flee, and what do you do? You stay while telling others to run from this madness.”
“It’s the only hope for Betty Parris I believe,” said Jeremy, “in order to come out of the fits torturing her.” Shading his eyes against the setting sun that streamed through the window, Jeremy added, “How goes it with you and Mr. Proctor’s petition before the court?”
Francis bowed his head. “Badly . . . badly, but we have our faith still, and we do what we can to comfort one another. Though there is to be hanging tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” asked Serena, hearing this for the first time. “Mother said not a word, nor did the jailer.”
“Who’s to be hung?” Jeremiah gritted his teeth, silently praying.
“Goode and four others.”
“Four?” Jeremy’s stomach sank. “Four, the number portends no good.”
“Who are among the four?” pleaded Serena.
“Three I know nothing of save they’re all from surrounding villages.”
“Who are they, Father?” Serena had become annoyed with his obvious stalling tactics.”
“Susannah Martin of Amesbury, who spoke as saucily to the judges as had Bridget Bishop, I can tell you.”
“And?”
“Also a Sarah Wildes of Topsfield had a tongue on her, a vile mouth.”
“Father, please!”
“Elizabeth Howe of Ipswich—a saintly lady to be sure.”
“And the fourth?” Serena shook him.
“It was to be Osborne of Salem, but she’s recanted her plea of innocence and has named others. So it fell to your mother, my Rebecca to be tried next.”
“Tried and . . . ” began Jeremy.
“They can’t be serious!” cried out Serena.
“Oh, they’re serious!” replied Ben.
Jeremy stomped his boot against the floor. “Damn the fools! God, I’ve seen it before, both in Maine and in Connecticut. They want a hanging, they will have a hanging. But five in one day, I’ve never seen the like of, no.”
“Goode yes,” said Francis sadly. “Osborne for sure a witch or maybe, but the others? I’d never have guessed it’d come to five found guilty and hung here in Salem.”
“All in a matter of a few months. Doesn’t make sense; doesn’t sit well.” Serena put her arm around her father, her thoughts obviously with her mother, and what this news heralded.
Jeremy thought of Serena hanging onto her mother’s hands through the grimy little prison window. He then imagined Serena and her family having to watch Mother Nurse’s public execution. The others had fallen silent, contemplating their worst fears coming true. If the authorities carried through with a sextuplet hanging, what would stay their hand from repeating the act? And who would be among the next six marked for death? Jeremiah’s own thoughts rang like the bell of the gravedigger, chiming his work done.
Serena returned to the subject of Betty Parris. “Jeremy, how do suppose distance from Salem will help the Parris child?”
“Distance from her father is enough,” Ben replied, a sneer in his tone.
Jeremiah couldn’t help laughing at this. “True, but ’tis also a matter of the child’s seeing a new surrounding, any new surrounding, telling her she’s out of the situation, away from where the curse against her took place. Gives the victim, and no doubt she is just that, a feeling of safety just to cross a body of water. You know the superstitions; how they work.”
Serena nodded at all he said. “I should think that any geography other than that found beneath her bed could help the child.”
“Her mother, too. Mrs. Parris’ health has suffered greatly in all of this.”
Francis Nurse sighed heavily. “I c
an well imagine. I recall many nights when Rebecca and I were up with our children. To have one as afflicted as that child, from what I’ve gathered, is beyond me.”
Serena wrung her hands. “Will Mr. Corwin and Mr. Hathorne carry through on the threats of hanging the six?”
“Not Corwin nor Hathorne, not technically, no.”
“What do you mean?”
“They haven’t the authority.”
“But it was in their courtrooms the guilty verdicts were handed down.”
“All the same, they’re courts are for petty crimes, misdemeanors, and suits.”
“They signed the warrants, ordered the arrests,” countered Ben, confused, “initiated warrants.”
“All that Corwin and Hathorne can legally do is collect evidence, run interviews, but decisions of life and death are made by the General Court of Assistants in Boston. It’s why Goode and the others were sent to Boston to stand trial there. The system is wise. Take the trial out of the locals’ hands, away from the borough where emotions and feelings run ahead of fact, and where authorities are often . . . well, inept.”
“Jeremy’s right, Ben,” Francis said while squeezing Serena’s hand in his. “Those facing the rope were found guilty in the local courts, but only the Court of Assistants can bring back an indictment of death. Hell, Hathorne’s court has never handled a case involving more than a claim of fifty pounds.”
“Certainly not charges of witchcraft and murder,” added Jeremy. “But they’ve been doing exactly that with the Boston authorities sitting alongside them. They’ve brought the Boston high court to Salem for what purpose? It’s all in all a sham.”
Serena gritted her teeth. “And yet Corwin and Hathorne are-are daily running interrogations, both in their courts and at the prison, where they do searches of the accused prisoner’s body.”
“It’s all been a show,” Jeremy assured his new bride.
“The real show is with Sir William and the larger court,” Francis added.
“Which is a breaking of the law in itself,” Jeremy insisted. “Convening a Court of Oyer & Terminer without consent or even knowledge on the part of the King. Frankly, all of their convictions are in question.”
“Tell that to the hangman,” muttered Ben. “I hear a hangman’s scaffold is being built by that cursed fool Fiske as we speak.”
“Where at?” asked Francis.
“Aside that giant oak top of Watch Hill.”
It was the same hill where Jeremy had hoped to meet with Mr. Higginson on his arrival in Salem, a goodly distance from the village, situated between the seaport and the village, yet within sight of the prison window. It’d mean a good parade of the accused either by foot or riding that cage, the jail cart. A last opportunity for jeers, curses, eggs, rotten fruit, and stones.
“What I fail to grasp,” said Francis, eyes cast downward still, “is why Magistrates Corwin and Hathorne have involved themselves at all; they could well have stayed above it and out of it, but they didn’t.”
“I believe they’ve been unduly influenced by three—no four—forces, Mr. Nurse.”
“Go on, Jeremiah.”
Jeremy cleared his throat. “Ambition, greed, a man named Parris, and the Boston magistrates who visited them.”
“A tangled web they weave?”
“As tangled a web as you can imagine.”
“I can imagine much.”
“And so how, Jeremy,” pleaded Serena, “how do we use this fact to free my mother?”
“At the moment, I’ve no idea.”
“What’s become of promises from Mather’s son?” asked Francis. “Reverend Cotton Mather?”
“I don’t know. Sorry, but I just don’t know.”
“Are we to wait until . . . until . . . ” began Ben, tears blinding him.
“Ease your mind, Ben,” Francis told his son.” Francis went to Ben, reached out and took his face in both hands, and then hugged him. “We are all in God’s hands. Understand that, accept it, and be at peace. What is the worst they can do to us now? Take Mother’s life? It cannot, it will not happen.”
“Stop it, Father!” Ben pulled away. “You’re a fool not to see where they’re headed!”
“Mind what your mother has said to us all, son!”
“She’s out of her head, Father!” he replied, going around the room, waving arms in the air. “She’s like a child! How can we follow her dictates? We must save her from them and from herself! All this nonsense about God’s will!”
“She believes it firmly!” replied Serena. “Says ‘He may have my life, if it’s God’s will, if He has led me to this end, then so be it.”
Francis agreed. “She keeps telling us all to let it be, but how can we?”
“You can’t listen to her!” Ben pounded about. “You sound as if you want her hung!”
Francis moved faster than he had in all the time Jeremy had known him, and he slapped Ben hard across the face. Ben stared in response and quietly said, “All she need do is lie to them; tell them what they want to hear. She is freed then to come home.”
“Those who’ve chosen that route have had to point a finger at others, Ben,” Jeremy said. “Your mother would never indict another.”
Serena added, “She told me that she’d not ever deny her God by doing as others have, by declaring a lie, Ben, by saying she’s abandoned God for the Antichrist. No, she will not!”
“She’s a brave woman, your mother, Ben.” Jeremy patted his young brother-in-law on the back, but Ben shrugged it off.
“Mother pleaded that we not visit again or attempt to see her again,” Serena told her father. “Says we worry her more with our presence; that she is in the Valley of Death and must walk it alone.”
“She fears we’ll bring the full wrath of the most vicious among the villagers down around us,” added Jeremy. “Giving comfort to the enemy will turn eyes on you—and your mother is wise.”
By the same token, Jeremy had himself gone down to the jail two evenings ago by cover of darkness with a handful of coins given him by Francis to put into the palm of Mr. Gatter, that foul-smelling jailer. Jeremy recalled the night visit and the sounds of the suffering inside that damnable, government-sanctioned oven.
Laying the money into Gatter’s hand, Jeremy had said, “Do all you can to make sure the accused are fed properly, Mr. Gatter, and should I learn you have used these funds badly or in gaming, or for drink, I will come looking for you.”
“Awww, ya kin hurt a man to the quick, sir, but for sure, you kin-count on me, Mr. Wakely, sir. I know she’s your mother in there—whether witch or no.”
Jeremiah could hardly abide the smell of Gatter or his twisted features and hair lip or his gnarled legs. He’d spoken briefly with Rebecca through the window, but Rebecca had only one thing to say, and she repeated it throughout: “Get Serena away from here, and if you can, take Ben with you, please. I’ll not budge. Stubborn is my faith.”
“And the authorities, Mother, they will hold their ‘truths’self-evident—that those among you who won’t confess have hearts turned to stone by Satan’s touch.”
“Self-evident, eh? Blindness is evident in this. Look here, I cannot be saved, but my children can be. Do it for me, Jeremiah Wakely, please!”
“But they are deaf to me and to caution. You’ve raised stubborn, proud children, Mother Nurse.”
“Afraid so.”
“Children who don’t run from a fight.”
“Aye but this is no fair fight. Jeremy, convince Francis. Do all you can to get the young ones, and all my grandchildren to safe harbor.”
Jeremy now wondered what safe harbor might be available to any of them. It felt like some cosmic force at work, testing them all. So many things had gone wrong—Increase Mather’s being called to duty an ocean away, Higginson’s being called to the ultimate shore, the Governor’s march off into the wilderness to fight painted but corporeal savages, coming at such a time of avarice, greed, political ambition—all of it at once in pe
rfect blend with the horror on the public mind of demonic overthrow of the entire world beginning with Salem.
# # # # #
At the Nurse compound, emotions ran high, everyone’s nerves frayed at the seams. The old man, Francis Nurse, had once again called all his sons and sons-in-law, and any in the family old enough to carry a weapon. It was to this meeting of angry Nurse-Towne-Easty-Tarbell men, all related and plotting an armed rebellion against the courts in Salem Village that Serena and Jeremy had returned to after a ride that had taken them back to Samuel’s old place, the rustic home where they had first made love for another and more judicious examination with the idea of homesteading there. But before they were through, again they had made love.
Serena kept seeing the bright side of the idea of making Samuel Nurse’s abandoned place theirs, while Jeremy remained skeptical. She’d grown angry with him after he’d suggested they follow Mrs. Parris to Connecticut or return to Boston to set up house there. “In time, I can find work,” he had insisted, but Serena swore she’d never leave Salem until her mother was free of “that dungeon”. “You find a way to free Mother, and I will go to the ends of the Earth with you,” she challenged him.
As they returned to a summit where the main Nurse home could be seen, they saw the standing wagons and buggies about the gate. “Father’s called another meeting in our absence!” She galloped ahead of Jeremy, leaving him and Dancer in her wake.
At the house, Serena pushed through the gate and burst in on them. “Do nothing rash, Father!”
“This is for men to decide, daughter.”
“But Father, how many times’ve you told us that Mother has pleaded that we do nothing rash.”
“This is our mother they have in irons!” Ben charged and menaced her.
Jeremiah stepped in and put up a warning hand. “Serena’s only reminding you all what Mother Nurse has said a hundred times.”
Francis took Serena aside. “We’ve got to do something, girl. We know your mother’s wishes.”
Children of Salem Page 39
