Children of Salem

by Robert W. Walker

  Reverend Noyes, his nose lifted high, noticed the disturbance among the children on white chargers. He reined in his dark mare and gave a stern look to Serena as if following the awful gaze of little Anne Putnam, whose scrawny frame atop such a large horse looked ludicrous to Serena. Get that child a pony, she heard herself thinking.

  The entourage continued onward toward the east, toward Salem Town. Serena wondered who might the little brigands be after today. It appeared Mr. Noyes had some enemies in his parish now who needed to be brought down.

  Soon after the noise of the witch cart and the band of people around it had subsided entirely, Serena stood and made her way back toward the house. Nowhere safe, she had told Jeremy, and now her home felt like the largest target of the evil in control here, like a bull’s-eye for the accusers. Her father’s rashness this morning had only made it more so.

  She feared they’d simply chosen to not stop for her on the way to the harbor, but had every intention of picking her up on their way back—especially if they failed to find any witches in Salem Town. She imagined, and it seemed so, that Herrick carried blank arrest warrants in his britches so that if one of the nasty little prophets should make an accusation on the road, that he’d be prepared. Noyes would be the name on the warrants today. “Proper procedure be damned!” she shouted to the trees. “In the face of immediate danger, in war, action must be taken. Witchcraft must be met with a suspension of basic human rights and laws of normalcy.”

  All this while Parris and to some lesser degree, Thomas Putnam had faded into the background, and the law nowadays was based on some notion of an invisible nature. How terrifying, she thought. How barbaric. How far from sane rule have we come?

  Serena hadn’t long to learn an answer to her question.

  The accusing children returned before dusk, and they sat at Serena’s gate like vultures. Francis brought up the blunderbuss, pointing at the men on horseback and those horrible children pointing their combined fingers at Serena, calling out that she sent needles into their eyes and ears and in private places. Then Sheriff Herrick read the warrant before his men and several ‘witches’ already humbled and squatting behind the bars in the jail cart.

  Serena wrested the gun from her father. “They will kill you, Father!”

  “I can’t see you taken away a witch!” he cried out. “Not a second time, Herrick! You’ve killed my wife! Now you wish to sanction the murder of my daughter?”

  “There is nothing I can do. The warrant is made out. I only follow orders.”

  “Parris’ orders? Noyes? Those damned children!”

  “Father, go to John’s place, please!” She hugged Francis tightly to her. “I’ll not be the cause of your dying here today.”

  “Where is Wakely?” asked the old man. “If he were here and Ben were here, we’d have a turkey shoot sure. They’d not let you be dragged off a witch!” He grabbed his chest, his face stricken with pain, jaw slack. He slid from her grasp, heavy and unable to stand.

  “His heart!” Serena looked to Herrick and Noyes and the others for any sign of sympathy or help but none came. “He needs be helped inside! Will you help me get him abed?”

  “It’s a trick!” Anne Putnam raised a fist skyward. “A witch’s trick!”

  Herrick ordered two men to help get Francis inside and in a bed.

  “I can’t leave him alone like this, Mr. Herrick, please.”

  “Told you it was a trick!” shouted Anne.

  Herrick ordered one of his men to stay with Francis, a second to alert John Tarbell to come to the house to see to him.

  “Does that suit you, Good-daughter Nurse . . . ah, Mrs. Wakely?”

  “You’ve known me all your life, Mr. Herrick, and I’ve given you no more cause to suspect me a witch than did my mother. Soon they will be asking you to give up your mother, your sister!”

  Herrick quietly replied, “I won’t go the way of Williard.”

  “And you know him to be an honorable man, and yet he is to be hanged tomorrow along with my aunt!”

  “I must obey my orders, ma’am.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you do.”

  Serena was escorted to the jail cart, the same as had been used to humiliate her mother before her. “You’re all transparent liars, all of you! You won’t be happy until you’ve stolen our lands!”

  “Get in there, now!” Herrick’s anger showed on his face. “I’ve collected no lands or buildings, mills or inns, young woman. And I’ve not been paid my rate for two months!”

  Inside the cart, the entire world changed. Serena’s home became smaller and smaller, cut into sections by the bars she gazed through. She no longer had to imagine what her mother had faced, what she had gone through; she was now living it.

  The other three women in the cart appeared as normal as Serena could imagine. She had no personal contact with any of them in the past, but they looked like housewives, bakers, mothers, sisters, nieces and daughters. None looked or acted like the addled Sarah Goode or the vile-tongued Osborne, or unwashed Martha Carrier—the dregs that her mother’d been jailed alongside. These arrested looked like respectable, kindly, perhaps saintly women like her mother, like herself.

  No matter. They were all on the way to Gatter’s ugly black hole in the village as it had been emptied, the prisoners there housed in the newly built Soddy-jail built by those now making a living off the misery of neighbors. Many another prisoner had by now been carted off to other villages and to Boston, all awaiting time on the court docket in Salem Village and Salem Town now.

  Serena shared glances with each of the other so-called witches in the cart. What has Jeremy to return to now? Now I am gone the way of Mother. Arrested, thrown into the same jail where Mother spent her last days. That vile place run by that vile man who claimed that he had been saved by her mother but who would not say so publicly.

  # # # # #

  The following day, August 19th, 1692

  From inside her jail cell, Serena heard the village crier’s voice wafting down to her as he called out the names of those condemned to die today: George Burroughs, George Jacobs Senior, John Proctor, John Williard, Martha Carrier, and Samuel Wardwell. She breathed a sign of relief as her Aunt Sarah Cloyse and Mary Easty had not been included on today’s calendar.

  “Mrs. Proctor must have won her claim of pregnancy,” Serena told the other prisoners. It had taken her the entire night to get used to the odors in the communal cell.

  “We should all be so lucky,” replied Martha Corey—who’d been in the village jail now longer than anyone, and whose ‘confession’ had gotten her husband arrested and dead from torture. She’d also managed to lose control of her land and property, the mill. She’d been one of those who’d escaped the night Serena, Jeremy, Ben and Tarbell had opened the jail, but she’d been run to ground, caught, and returned. She now said unbidden, “Your mother, Serena, is sore missed. She led us all in prayer here.”

  Another prisoner added, “A wonderful soul was she.”

  “Thank you, Goodwife Corey, Goodwife Nels.”

  Giles Corey had laughed at the antics of the accusing children, and he’d publicly joked that if any witch lived in Salem, it was his wife. This had led to Martha’s arrest, and angry, she in turn spoke out against Giles as a witch man. After he had been arrested, he’d sought to keep his mill and lands for his sons. He hit on the little known right of an Englishman faced with accusation could plead innocent, guilty, or put in no plea whatsoever. He would ride it out on a plea of No Plea. If he chose to remain mute, he decided, they could not take his property, and once this witchcraft nonsense passed, he’d be set free having lost nothing.

  Unfortunately, the judges ordered the man be made to plea, and to do that, they left the methods to the sheriff and his men. Corey stood mute against the fear of his property’s being confiscated. He’d seen how the goods, provisions, cattle, crops planted, home, and lands of others had been taken by the court. Much of the accused’s cattle and provisions had been s
ent to auction in the West Indies—Barbados in particular.

  Someone, and Serena had a pretty good guess as to whom it might be—Jeremy—had counseled Corey to remain the deed holder to his mill and lands, grain sacks, provisions, and animals that he could refuse to enter a plea of innocence or guilt. For one night, Jeremy had explained to Serena about this an old English tenet that a man had the right to stand mute. For a long time, Giles had done just that. He’d been hauled before the judges several times, and each time he simply refused to enter a plea. This behavior stymied the court and its plans to seize Corey properties.

  So when Giles Corey, giant and simple man, refused to state himself guilty or innocent, the judges were thrown into a quandary. They had to consult their dusty law books to determine how to proceed. Meanwhile, they held Giles in one jail, his wife in another—so as to have no opportunity for Martha’s becoming pregnant as had occurred with the Proctors.

  One by one, the crackling gunshot noise of the opening traps at the gallows reported back to the jail. One, two, three, four, five, six. Six more executed, bringing the number to twelve condemned ‘witches’ executed by official ceremony.

  Over the months of this horror, Serena had seen a brave John Proctor, like her father, speak out and write eloquently for appeal to mercy and forbearance and understanding and time. First for his wife, secondly for Serena’s mother, and finally on his own behalf before going to the gallows in her place. Serena had read some of his writings, and for a country farmer, his language had moved her to tears and to hope. He had made her father believe in hope as well. He’d been a strong voice for reason and time, but those who’d condemned both John and Elizabeth Proctor had condemned his words as evil and twisted in purpose as well. Their chief first accuser among the children had been Mercy Lewis, followed by Mary Wolcott—both of whom had been, at one time or another, maidservants in the Proctor home.

  At every turn, Serena saw only frustration and loss.

  And where is Jeremiah? Has he made any headway in Boston whatsoever? God help him. God help me.

  Chapter Seven

  Jeremiah had been held up in Boston when Dancer had shown signs of hobbling rather than trotting. He had pulled up and taken a look at the leg Dancer favored. Blood oozed from her left-front hoof. On close examination, he saw that the horse needed a fresh shoe as stones had gotten under the older shod work. The stones had worked into the flesh.

  As it must be done, Jeremy returned to Boston, located a smithy, and decided to have all four hooves shod. It meant another day in Boston, but now he was back in the vicinity of the Nurse home.

  He now stood on a high rise overlooking all of Salem Farms, rising up on his stirrups, peering through his spy glass for any signs of life down at the Nurse home, any sign of Serena in particular. But the stillness and darkness of the place even now in early sunlight created an odd, painful fear in his chest, a feeling of déjà vu, as in the time he and Serena had returned only to learn that Rebecca had been taken. Nothing looked normal down there.

  His immediate thoughts and fears raced to Serena.

  He settled back into the saddle and drove toward the house. Dancer felt good beneath him, as if happy to see home as well.

  When he pulled up at the gate and tied Dancer to, he noticed that the gate had been broken off its hinges. He rushed up the stairs only to be met by big John Tarbell, a look of terrible pain coloring his face. “It’s bad news, Wakely. Bad news all round.”

  “Serena? Where is she?” He rushed past and inside the dark interior.

  “Father Francis is dead.” Tarbell stood behind him.

  “I hear no wailing, no one!”

  “The house is empty save for me and now you.”

  “And Serena? Where is my wife, man!”

  “Taken.”

  “Taken?”

  “She was arrested as a witch yesterday.”

  “Yesterday I was supposed to be here! Damn me!”

  “You couldn’t’ve stopped them taking her, and Francis died trying. His heart gave out. I think he could not see his daughter done the way of Rebecca.”

  Jeremy stood staring at Tarbell, unable to believe all this had come about only in the past twenty-four hours. “Ben?”

  “Away.”

  “Joseph?”

  “Walking around in circles.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s walking a petition for Serena, door to door. And there was another hanging yesterday as well—John Proctor among them, along with Williard.”

  “Both the Proctors? And Williard?”

  “Mrs. Proctor survived, but John, the others on the list, Martha Carrier, George Burroughs, Old Jacobs, Williard, yes, and a man who bravely stepped forward when they were going to go ahead with the execution of the pregnant Elizabeth Proctor.”

  “A brave man who stood in for her?”

  “They really wanted to use all six of those traps this time,” Tarbell muttered.

  “Who stood in for Mrs. Proctor and her unborn child?”

  “Samuel Wardwell.”

  “Known since I was a lad as the Wizard of Andover.” Jeremy went back outside, unable to look on the sad sight of Francis Nurse’s corpse any longer where Tarbell and Joseph had laid him in a newly built coffin. From behind him, Jeremy heard Tarbell say, “We intend burying him alongside Rebecca.”

  “One secret that has been kept around here,” Jeremy muttered, staring out at the spot where Rebecca lay. “The bastards are decimating our family, John.”

  “Not sure what that means, but I can guess.”

  Jeremy leaned into the railing here on the front porch. His heart sank as the sun rose higher, realizing how horrible it must be at this moment for Serena. “So side by side they hang a minister and a wizard,” he said and coughed out an angry laugh.

  Tarbell stood alongside him. “And they would have killed an innocent babe, had not the wizard stepped forward.”

  “Aye. They’ve their own notions of innocence and guilt these days.”

  “No doubt the unborn child will make a witch once free of the womb.” Tarbell spat.

  “And Serena? Where’ve they taken her? Which of their bloody holes?”

  “She sits in the same jail her mother once occupied.”

  “Damn them! Damn them all! I’m going for her!”

  Tarbell grabbed him and shoved him against a wall. “Not by day, and not alone, brother.”

  It was the first time any of the Nurse boys or brothers-by-marriage had called Jeremiah brother. “What do you propose?”

  “I propose this time we do what we failed doing last time.”

  “Right, good!”

  “We carry her out of there, and you, sir, you take her as far from here as you can.”

  As Mother and Father had asked me to do, he silently chastised himself. “I shouldn’t’ve gone off to Boston. I should’ve taken Serena and disappeared.”

  “Right . . . right. Look, man, she wouldn’t go without Francis in there, and he wouldn’t leave Rebecca out there.” He pointed to the stand of oaks.

  “Away to Connecticut then, once we have Serena back.”

  “We may follow,” replied Tarbell.

  “We’ll take new names, and once there no one will know us.”

  “The fools behind this terrible mischief have allowed the children to reach too far in their accusations.”

  “Are you saying those in control of the bratty accusers have lost any control they may’ve once had?”

  “Most certainly true with this latest mad accusation.”

  “Against whom?”

  “Against Mrs. Hale of Waverly.”

  “Not the minister’s wife!” Jeremy grasped his brother by the arm.

  “Yes, the terror at Reverend Hale’s doorstep now.”

  “My god, but then perhaps the lunacy will be at an end. I mean if they can call out that dear lady, a minister’s wife . . .”

  “All the same, you and Serena must disappear.”

>   “But imagine it. They’re accusing Mrs. Hale of rank witchcraft? Mrs. Hale? John Hale’s wife?”

  “Some are already backing off it as a case of mistaken identity on the astral plane, as things can be confused for those who see into that damnable Invisible World they speak of. How’s that for a laugh?”

  “I can’t recall a time when we could laugh, John. But if this is true, then Hale himself must see the error—the horrible error of it all. This acceptance of spectral evidence, the madness of it.”

  “We can only pray. But as I said, the adults who stand behind the children —those bloodthirsty children—are recanting this accusation for them.”

  “Why would they point a finger at Mrs. Hale of all people?”

  “She has taken up the same cause as Mrs. Phipps.”

  “The governor’s wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “What cause is that?” Jeremy wildly imagined Mrs. Hale telling people about an unaccounted for child in Barbados, a child killed by Parris and a mysterious Dr. Caball.

  “The cause of feeding the accused—same as Serena did here, and Mrs. Phipps is known for in Boston.”

  “I see.”

  “Mrs. Hale made a habit of visiting the jails with loaves of bread baked in her own kitchen.”

  “Pity and mercy are now cause to accuse others?” Jeremy shook his head and watched as some men made their way toward Salem Town with what few goods they had to barter with today.

  “No big surprise, really. Look at how many people who’ve signed petitions have come under arrest.”

  “She’s a brave lady then, Mrs. Hale.”

  “And a lady of great distinction. But then so is Serena and Rebecca and her sisters.”

  The two men found some ale and toasted to Francis. After a time, Tarbell said, “Mr. Hale has gone about denouncing any such notions of his wife—and in doing so—”

  “Has himself been called out at warlock?”

  “Yes.”

  Jeremy thought about this for a moment. “You know, John, this turn of events could work to our advantage. Mr. Hale is widely believed a pious, honest man who is what he is and has no secret life.”

  “You mean like that old man in there? John Proctor, Sheriff Williard, and the black smith, Samuel Wardwell? A man who sacrificed his life for that of an unborn child and its mother?”