by R. D. Brady
Dorcas said nothing as Meg told her tale after tale. But she held her hand tightly. And at the end of the afternoon, Meg began the stories that she knew Dorcas wanted to hear the most.
“And the leader of this incredible group of women was named Sarah Goode. And she stood strong and tall as the world crashed down upon them. Never wavering, never caving in, even as their lives were at risk.”
Meg told the tale of Sarah and the Followers’ bravery and pretended she did not see the tears that rolled down Dorcas’s cheeks throughout the telling. Just as she pretended not to notice the tears that ran down her own. She finished her tale the way she always did.
“And we are the descendants of these amazing women. And we will carry on their legacy.”
FACT OR FICTION
It goes without saying that The Belial Witches is a work of fiction, even though it is based on actual events, so it becomes necessary to determine what is fact and what is fiction. But before we get there, let me say a little bit about why I chose to write The Belial Witches. When I was working on The Belial Plan, I was searching for a historical incident in America’s history that was female-centered. The Salem Witch Trials came to mind pretty quickly.
The more I researched the trials, the more clear the women and the forces arrayed against them became. And as I read about their treatment and the evidence against them, the angrier I got.
And the more I liked the idea of there being a greater purpose behind their deaths... if only that were true. Now on to the heart-breaking fact and fiction:
Numbers. Over two hundred people were arrested and over twenty were killed. The numbers vary slightly depending on the source, but that is the ballpark.
Research. The facts that I have included from the Salem Witch Trials are by no means the extent of the trials. For length, I necessarily had to cut a number of individuals from the story. In some of the research, names and dates varied. This is not a non-fiction retelling of the trials, so there will be and are some creative licenses taken.
Names and Susan Osbourne. Sorry about the similarity in names. Apparently, only a handful of names seemed to be used in Salem at the time of the witch trials. There is one name that I switched: Susan Osbourne is actually Sarah Osbourne. But being that Sarah Goode and Sarah Osbourne were incarcerated at the same time, it was frustrating to write and read using both first and last names. As a result, I renamed Sarah Osbourne to Susan Osbourne just to make the reading a little easier. And as explained in The Belial Witches, Susan/Sarah Osbourne was sickly and did die in prison.
Cotton Mather. Cotton Mather was a difficult personality to pin down. He was well known for his writings on witchcraft. His role in the Salem Witch Trials is unclear. He wrote about the witch trials in contradictory ways. He argued for the need to root out witches while at the same time arguing against trials. Cotton Mather was one of the leading voices in the fight against the Devil. His father, Increase, was the president of Harvard College. It is unclear if it was his father or Cotton who attended the hanging of Reverend Burroughs and George Jacobs.
Ann Putnam. I liked the idea of one of the girls intentionally manipulating Salem. Ann Putnam seemed to be the ringleader, so she seemed like the most likely choice. Unfortunately for that idea, years after the trials, Ann recanted and apologized. No Fallen would do that. So I needed another way to make her evil yet consistent with history, hence Tituba opening a door.
However, the Putnam family do seem to be identified as a leading cause of the accusations. Those accused all seemed to have crossed the Putnams in some way. The Putnams, by the way, were Rebecca Nurse’s neighbors.
Margaret ‘Meg’ Jacobs. Meg Jacobs was only seventeen years old when she was arrested. She did accuse both her grandfather and Reverend George Burroughs, who had moved out of the area. She later recanted her testimony and sat in jail waiting for her death sentence. But the trials were ended and she was released.
Dorcas Goode. Sarah Goode’s daughter was arrested shortly after she was. Sources conflict as to her age, but the oldest age attributed to her was seven. She was reported to have been chained to a wall in a cell for the duration of her incarceration, which lasted months. She never recovered and was unable to take care of herself for the rest of her life. Her father filed a lawsuit on her behalf and won a successful settlement. It was the largest settlement of any of the lawsuits brought on behalf of the victims of the witch trials.
Salem. Salem never truly recovered from the trials. Most of the jurors moved away and the town itself struggled with its reputation. Eventually the town was renamed Danvers, Massachusetts, hoping that the name change signified to the world that they were not the same town that had engaged in the trials.
Main characters. When I was writing The Bell Plan, I became fascinated with the witch trials. They were truly a horrible time in American history. In creating The Belial Witches, I struggled because everyone I thought would be my main protagonist died early on during this dark period. That is how Meg ended up being our main character.
Sarah Goode. Sarah Goode was disliked in Salem before the trials began. She was opinionated and loud. She did not hold back. She also had a husband who ran through her money and then died, leaving her in debt with mouths to feed. And her second husband was not wealthy. She was known to resort to begging when times got tough.
To be honest, Sarah broke my heart. As mentioned above, her daughter Dorcas was indeed arrested shortly after her and held in chains for months at around the age of five. Sarah herself was pregnant with a little girl, who was born in jail and then died. She was named Mercy.
The quote attributed to Sarah where she prophesized Reverend Nicholas Noyes’s death is accurate. And the reverend did indeed die fifteen years later, choking on his own blood as a result of a hemorrhage.
The Rights of Women. It was difficult on multiple levels to write The Belial Witches. There were men accused, but the predominant individuals accused and killed were women. In this time period, they had no rights. They were completely powerless against the forces arrayed against them. They could not even fight back verbally against their accusers because their accusers spoke of their specters attacking them at night. It was only when the governor’s wife was charged that he disallowed this spectral evidence and the trials fell apart.
The Accusers. All of the young girl accusers were friends. According to some reports, Tituba did indeed introduce the young girls in her charge to the supernatural. And once the trial began, the number of accusers grew as neighbor turned on neighbor to save themselves.
Publication Schedule. Some people have been kind enough to reach out and ask how many more books will be in the series. There will be three more: The Belial War, The Belial Fall, and The Belial Sacrifice. I don't have firm publication dates for them but hopefully the first will be out by January 2018.
Before that, however, the second full-length novel in the A.L.I.V.E. Series, D.E.A.D., will be released in June. In addition, The Unwelcome Trilogy, will be released this summer. Keep an eye out for them or you can sign up for my mailing list and I'll let you know when they are released.
Thank you again for reading! Until next time,
R.D.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
The Followers
Sarah Goode - leader of the Followers, mother of Dorcas
Susan Osbourne - one of the first arrested
Rebecca Nurse - seventy-one-year-old grandmother
Mary Eastly - Rebecca Nurse’s sister
Elizabeth Proctor
Martha Carrier
Martha Cory
Margaret ‘Meg’ Jacobs - the youngest member of the Followers, George Jacobs’s granddaughter
Critical Characters
Reverend Nicholas Noyes - reverend from neighboring town
Samuel Parris - reverend of Salem
Cotton Mathers - leading scholar on witchcraft
Ann Putnam Senior - mother of Ann Putnam
Thomas Putnam - father of Ann Putnam
George Jacobs - Me
g Jacobs’s grandfather
Tituba - Reverend Samuel’s slave
George Burroughs - former reverend of Salem
Dorcas Goode - Sarah’s daughter
Members of the Court
John Hathorne, magistrate
Jonathan Corwin, magistrate
The Accusers
Elizabeth Samuel - Reverend Samuel’s daughter
Abigail Williams - Reverend Samuel’s niece
Mary Wolcott
Mercy Lewis
Elizabeth Hubbard
Mary Warren
BOOKS BY R.D. BRADY
The Belial Series (in order)
The Belial Stone
The Belial Library
The Belial Ring
Recruit: A Belial Series Novella
The Belial Children
The Belial Origins
The Belial Search
The Belial Guard
The Belial Warrior
The Belial Plan
Stand-Alone Books
Runs Deep
Hominid
The A.L.I.V.E. Series
B.E.G.I.N.
A.L.I.V.E.
Be sure to sign up for R.D.'s mailing list to be the first to hear when she has a new release!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
R.D. Brady is an American writer who grew up on Long Island, NY but has made her home in both the South and Midwest before settling in upstate New York. On her way to becoming a full-time writer, R.D. received a Ph.D. in Criminology and taught for ten years at a small liberal arts college.
R.D. left the glamorous life of grading papers behind in 2013 with the publication of her first novel, the supernatural action adventure, The Belial Stone. Over a dozen novels later and hundreds of thousands of books sold, and she hasn't looked back. Her novels tap into her criminological background, her years spent studying martial arts, and the unexplained aspects of our history.
The Belial Witches is the eleventh book in the popular Belial Series. If you would like to be notified about her upcoming publications, you can sign up for her mailing list. Those who sign up will receive a free e-book copy of B.E.G.I.N. You will only be notified when a book is being released.
For more information:
rdbradywriter
rdbradybooks.com
[email protected]
Copyright © 2017 by R.D. Brady
The Belial Witches
Published by Scottish Seoul Publishing, LLC, Dewitt, NY
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
Printed in the United States of America.
Created with Vellum
Table of Contents
Books By R.D. Brady
Untitled
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
FACT OR FICTION
Cast of Characters
Books By R.D. Brady
About the Author
Copyright
