Simon tried to jump to his feet, pulling against the tight, abrasive ropes, shouting, "Let me go, goddamn it let me and my kids go! I'll marry you, if that's what you want, I'll marry you for real, but just let us go!"
"Marry you!" she said, surprise and offense in her voice. "Marry you! After all which has gone between us! You flatter yourself, Simon Proctor, truly you do!" She glanced over her shoulder. "Mary Warren, come here. Mary approached obediently. "Sit beside our friend Simon and comfort him. He is about to become very, very upset." She laughed and turned away. Abigail knelt in the midst of the church, facing away from the front, away from the cross, and she bowed her head and began to mutter supplications to her dark lord.
Mary sat beside Simon and looked down at the floor, avoiding his eyes. Simon whispered desperately, "Untie me, Adrienne, please untie me!"
"Mary," she corrected him sadly.
"All right, all right, Mary! Untie me, quickly, please!"
She heaved a mighty sigh. "I cannot. I am sorry."
"Yes you can, damn it, yes you can! You don't hate me, do you? You don't hate Lucas. You like Rowena, I know that for a fact! Help us, please!"
She shook her head sadly. "You do not understand, Mr. Proctor, and I cannot truly explain it to you. I am bound to obedience to Abigail. I was bound to her when first we both lived in Salem, and I am bound to her still. I owe her a debt, and—"
"A debt! Are you crazy?! What kind of debt could you possibly owe her to make you obey her like this?! Untie me, for Christ's sake!"
She shook her head again. " 'Twas I who ruined her plan to kill Elizabeth Proctor. 'Twas I whose foolishness led John Proctor to the gallows. She has never forgiven me. I am under Satan's curse and God's wrath." She began to weep. "I am alone, all alone in the world, with no one, with nothing. Satan plagues me for my weakness, God damns me for my sin, Abby torments me for my error." She looked up at him. "Don't you understand? I have no choice, no choice! I am bound to her, bound to her, her bidding is my will! Can't you understand?"
"Excuses, Mary Warren?" Abigail said, rising from her knees and walking menacingly forward. "Explanations? And to him?" She grabbed Mary by the hair and pulled her to her feet, gazing furiously into the weeping, sorrowful eyes. "Truly am I happy not to have been your school teacher! You never learn your lesson!" She pushed Mary back into the pew and then turned to Simon. " 'Tis a night for learning lessons. I shall now teach one to you, foolish man. You sold your soul to the Devil without even knowing it, without extracting from him any boon or benefit in exchange. Well, then, let me show you what awaits you. Let me give you—what is it the Christians say about their bread and wine?—let me give you a foretaste of the feast to come."
Abigail sauntered over to Lucas and smiled almost lovingly at him. The boy's head was rolling from side to side and his eyes were blinking painfully as he tried to rouse himself to full consciousness. Abigail slapped him gently on the cheek. "Lukie? Lukie! Wake up! It’s time to get up!" She giggled as Lucas Proctor's blurry eyes tried to focus on her face. "That's better." She turned to Simon and smiled. "Now watch carefully, my dear love." She looked up at Lucas and the smile faded from her face. She stepped back a few feet, never taking her eyes off him, and she extended both her arms toward him, fingers straight and taut. Abigail stood motionless for a moment and then screamed, "In nomine diaboli, incende!"
Lucas looked at her uncomprehendingly, and then his eyes went wide with pain and shock. His body began to shake violently and beads of perspiration began to roll down his face. He looked wildly over at Simon, and tried to speak, tried to cry out, but instead of words, billows of smoke issued from his mouth.
The smoke poured from his mouth, his nose, his ears. His arms and legs, wrapped still in clothing, began to sizzle audibly beneath the wool and cotton, and a few delicate licks of flame burst through his sleeves. A horrible shriek managed to escape his lips, and it was followed by a rolling ball of fire which leapt outward and then enveloped his head and shoulders. His body jerked and shuddered as the inferno consumed him from within, as the flames crept down his legs and up his arms and spread over his chest. The ropes which bound him to the ceiling caught fire and then snapped, allowing the heap of charred bone and melting flesh which had been Lucas Proctor to drop to the floor.
Simon screamed and Rowena screamed, but Abigail's laughter drowned them out. "Satanas laudamus!" she laughed.
"Lucas!" Simon wept. "Lucas, Lucas!" Rowena wept also, but could not bring herself to speak. She was almost paralyzed with fear.
Abigail smiled triumphantly at Simon. " 'Twas a bit chilly in here. We had need of a fire." She laughed again, madly, and then reached beneath her skirts. She slowly drew forth the knife which she sheathed against her thigh and then walked toward Rowena. "Ah, and what have we here?" she asked with amusement. "Why, 'tis yet another Proctor womb! Now, we cannot have this lying about, breeding more Proctor vermin, can we, my dear?"
"Daddy! Help me!" Rowena managed to cry out.
"Get away from her!" he screamed, choking on his own tears. "Please, Abigail, I'll do anything, anything you want, anything!"
"Good!" she grinned. "I want you to watch!" She placed the tip of the blade between Rowena's breasts and, without exerting any pressure other than the weight of the blade, drew it down her body to the petals of her nether lips. A thin line of red became visible in the blade's wake, and a few drops of blood beaded up at several points along the knife's path.
"Daddy—!" her voice broke.
Abigail pulled the blade away and stepped back, still smiling down at the terrified girl. She turned to Mary Warren and tossed the knife to her. Mary was not prepared to catch it, and it clattered loudly on the floor. "Pick it up!" she commanded. Mary bent down and retrieved the knife. "You must learn your place, Mary Warren. You must learn that you are mine, and Satan’s, and must do our bidding without making excuses or offering explanations." She stepped back and pointed at Rowena. "Gut her!" she ordered.
Mary Warren began to weep and her back bent with sorrow, but she nonetheless began to walk toward Rowena. She stood over her and placed the tip of the blade at the upper end of the thin red line, tightening her grip upon the hilt. She avoided Rowena's desperate, pleading eyes. "I am sorry" she whispered sadly.
"Adrienne—Mary—please—please—" the girl stammered.
"I must," she sighed. "I must do as I am told."
"No you don't," Rowena wept. "You do not have to do whatever she tells you to do, you do not!" The girl was trembling violently from her terror, and her wide, frightened eyes were fixed upon the blade whose tip rested upon her breast just below her throat. "We were friends—we were friends—you couldn't do this to me—you couldn't—"
"I am sorry," Mary repeated.
"When you were all upset and scared—in the motel—I held you and you cried on my shoulder—"
"I remember," Mary whispered, weeping.
"And at Christmas—" Rowena said, talking just to talk, her mind wildly trying to maintain a grip on sanity and reason in the midst of the madness which was beginning to engulf it, "at Christmas—I gave you a present, remember?"
"I remember."
"And I—I tried to help you when Larry—when Gwendolyn made you—I tried to help you—"
"I remember."
There was the slightest hint of pressure beginning to be brought to bear upon the knife, and Rowena screamed, "Oh God, please! Please!"
"I have no choice," Mary said sadly, wiping away a tear with her free hand. "I have no choice."
"Everyone has choice," Rowena screamed, "everyone has choice."
"No, not everyone. Not I." The pressure increased slightly.
"You do have a choice," Rowena wept. "You can still choose between doing what is right and doing what is wrong." Rowena tried to ignore Abigail's piercing laughter at her last statement. "You can still choose!" she repeated, as firmly as was possible with her broken, trembling voice.
"I made that choice centuries ago," Mary wh
ispered. "I cannot undo the choice I made then. There is no going back for me now."
"Mary, listen to me," Rowena said urgently. "I know what happened back in Salem, I know what happened to you back in Salem, I've read all about it—oh, God, PLEASE!—listen to me, Mary LISTEN to me!" She felt the cold tip of the knife pierce through the outer surface of her skin, just slightly, just barely, and felt her panic increasing rapidly. "You chose to do wrong, but you were pressured into it, intimidated, terrified into it. It was Abigail's fault, not yours, it was her fault, her fault! When you had to choose between telling the truth and supporting her lies, she forced you to make the wrong choice, she threatened you, she made you lie along with her and all the others."
"One cannot make another sin," Mary said quietly. "The choice was mine."
"No, it wasn't yours, you had no choice, you were a frightened, terrified, lonely girl and you were bullied into it, forced into it! Mary," she screamed, "don't you understand? It's happening to you again, right now, right now, just like it happened to you before! You have to choose between good and evil, and she's trying to force you to choose evil, just like she did in Salem three hundred years ago!"
"Enough!" Abigail spar. "Silence her, Mary Warren! Silence her immediately, do you hear?!"
"She destroyed you, Mary, don't you see?" Rowena cried. "She destroyed you just as surely as she destroyed John Proctor and all the other innocent people killed in Salem, just as surely as she destroyed Jeremy and Lucas. Everything that happened to you, everything, everything, is her fault! Don't let her do it again, Mary, don't let her do it to you again! Choose good, Mary, choose good, choose God!"
Mary froze in place. The blade did not withdraw from Rowena's breast, but neither did it descend.
"Mary Warren!" Abigail commanded. "Strike, damn you!" Mary did not reply. She was gazing off into the distance, her brow furrowed.
"Try to remember, try to think back to—to when you were—oh, Mary, try to remember what it was like before you met Abigail, what you were like before you met Abigail!" Rowena saw Mary's indecision and dared to focus her hopes upon it. She rushed on urgently, desperately, her voice filled with a terrified mixture of panic and prayer. "Try to remember, Mary, oh, please try to remember! Before she corrupted you, before she made you part of her own corruption! Please try, Mary, please! Please!"
"Strike!" Abigail repeated.
Mary Warren did not answer her. She was not listening to her. She was thinking back. She was remembering.
She was remembering her childhood. She remembered sitting upon her mother's lap, snug and secure as her mother sang her a lullaby. She remembered holding her father's hand as they walked from their simple cabin through the autumn forests of old New England, on their way to the meeting house for Sunday services. That was before the Indian attack, she thought, before Mother and Father were killed. Mother pushed me into the root cellar, beneath the trapdoor in the floor of the cabin. She stood on top of the trapdoor when the Indians broke in. She died there on that spot, protecting me, hiding me.
Mary remembered. She remembered how innocently she had fallen in love with young Matthew Hopkins, the blacksmith's son. She remembered how innocently he had returned her love. She remembered their awkward, trembling hands the first time they touched, children holding hands at an August picnic. And that first, gentle, fleeting kiss, their only kiss, their only intimacy, more intimate in its pristine innocence than any other kiss she had ever received.
She remembered what it was like to love and to hope and to dream.
She turned her head slowly in Abigail's direction and gazed at her coldly through narrowed eyes.
She remembered how much she had admired Abigail Williams, the minister's niece. She had so many of the qualities which Mary had lacked: self-confidence, poise, an easy manner, and a glib way with words. She had so wanted to be Abigail's friend. She wanted her friendship so much that she would have done anything—did do anything . . .
She remembered that day in the forest with Tituba, that day when the small group of girls had assembled to cast a spell upon Elizabeth Proctor. It had been Abigail's idea to cast the spell.
She remembered that she and Abigail were the first to disrobe, the first to stand naked in the freezing forest. It had been Abigail's idea that they be first, they two.
She remembered the demonic possession which they pretended to be experiencing, the convulsions which eventually they were unable to control. Abigail had led her into that absurd pretense, absurd in every way except that it was taken seriously by their elders.
She remembered her fear and her pain at the hands of the judges at the trial of Goodwife Proctor, and she remembered trying, at long last attempting, to tell the truth, that there were no witches, that there were no devils possessing them, that it was all sport, all pretense, all a foolish and wicked game.
And she remembered Abigail leading the other girls in an accusation against her! She remembered casting herself at Abigail's feet, she remembered being sucked back into the lies and the evil and the murderous perjury.
It was Abigail, it was all Abigail, it was always Abigail!
She remembered that day in the forest, that day when John Proctor was hanged on the basis of her own perjured testimony, that day when Abigail, when Abigail forced her to give herself to Satan, when Abigail forced her to swear the oaths which would condemn her to eternal damnation, when Abigail, when Abigail turned her from a weak and foolish girl into a murdering witch.
It was Abigail, it was ABIGAIL!
She remembered the whoring in Boston, and it was Abigail's idea that they be whores. She remembered kidnapping and butchering the infants as sacrifices to the Dark Lord, and it was Abigail's idea that they offer up the bloody gifts. She remembered that moment in the abandoned stable, that last moment of her previous life, as they stood upon their tiptoes with nooses around their necks. She remembered Abigail pushing her backward, killing her as she killed herself. She remembered that it was Abigail who wanted to end their lives quickly, so as to have their second lives all the sooner, so as to have a second chance for a Proctor's love or a second chance at vengeance upon a Proctor, and it had been Abigail's love and Abigail's vengeance, not hers, not Mary Warrens.
She looked down at the terrified, trembling girl who lay bound before her. And this is what we were in such a hurry to do, she thought. To kill this kind, innocent child who never showed me anything but sympathy and generosity and love.
I have been two people, Mary thought, two people. I have been a quiet, shy, timid, pious little girl, and I have been a murdering Satanist whore. And what was the link, what was the bridge?
"Abigail," she muttered softly.
Not hearing her softly spoken word, Abigail Williams repeated for the third time, "Strike, damn you!"
Mary Warren was gazing down at the desperate, pleading face of Rowena Proctor as she slowly pulled the tip of the knife away from the girl's breast. She turned to Abigail and said, in a quiet but strangely firm voice, "No."
Abigail glared at her. "Mary Warren, I warn you—!"
"No," she repeated. "I'll not have more innocent blood on my hands." She threw the knife away, and it clattered loudly against the floor of the church, echoing starkly against the old wooden walls. "What the girl has said is true, Abigail," she said evenly and without fear. "I never made a choice without you, I never chose but with your threats and demands pressing upon me. But now I shall choose, despite you. I shall not kill her." She reached down and began to untie the ropes which bound Rowena to the communion table. "And neither shall you."
Abigail Williams stared at her furiously. "Shall I not!" she said and walked over to the spot where the discarded dagger lay.
"Abby, stop!" Mary commanded. "This is not sport! I am not pretending!"
"Ah, but this is sport indeed!" Abigail said. "Our dear Simon has said so repeatedly, haven't you, my love?" She looked over at Simon Proctor, who was sitting bound, weeping, shaking, terrified, horrified, in the fro
nt pew. "All a game, is it not?" she asked. Abigail bent down and picked up the knife. "All a delightful game!" She stepped over the ashes of Lucas Proctor and lifted the knife high above her head as she approached Rowena. "Get out of my way, Mary!" she commanded.
Mary was still laboring on the tightly tied knots. "No. Abby," she said. "You shall not kill her."
"Oh, but I shall!" Abigail laughed darkly. "And then I shall make you pay for this, Mary Warren, I swear I shall!"
"I have paid for all I have done," Mary screamed, spinning around and facing her, a sudden fury taking possession of her. "I have paid for everything you have done to me, for everything you forced me to do!"
"Your guilt is your own, you silly ass!" Abigail spat.
"My guilt, my sin, was in listening to you, Abigail," she cried. "I listened to you and sent innocent people to the gallows. I listened to you and I sold myself to the Devil. I listened to you and I killed babies in Boston, I whored on the streets, I took my own life!" From her anger she drew strength, and in the bitterness of her misery she began to move slowly, menacingly toward Abigail. "But not again, Abby, no more. You shall not kill this girl! I say you shall not!"
Abigail grabbed Mary by the hair and pulled her forward and then flung her out toward the pews. "Indeed! Well, watch me, then, Mary! Watch me!" She walked to the side of the communion table upon which the bound girl lay and raised the dagger once again high above her head, preparing to strike deeply, with all her strength.
A motion to her side distracted her and she paused as she glanced toward it. Mary Warren crouched slightly and then threw her arms upward as she leapt from the floor. Simon and Rowena watched in mute astonishment, their terror momentarily forgotten, as Mary seemed to shrink and shrivel in mid jump, as her arms drew in close to her rapidly compacting body, as her head and legs shrank and grew thin and inhuman. In an instant Mary Warren was gone, and in her place a cawing crow flapped its wings in the air above them, a crow which rose slightly higher into the air and then dove at Abigail, its extended talons embedding themselves in her face.
Candlemas Eve Page 41
