Her Dear & Loving Husband

by Meredith Allard

  Sarah sat upright, her hands in her lap, her breath coming in shallow bursts. She looked like a child enthralled by a bedtime story. He was distracted by a consuming waft of strawberries and cream, and he leaned even closer.

  “But the accusations.” She stuttered her words, as if she couldn’t articulate her thoughts. “How can people turn on each other that way?”

  “The madness began the way all madness begins, with something unsettling that needs explanation. Samuel Parris’s parishioners were unhappy with him as the minister of the church in Salem Village, and they refused to pay their local taxes, the funds from which he received his salary. Suddenly he was giving sermons citing how the Devil was infecting Salem, telling every-one they must pray for an end to the evil here. Around this time his nine-year-old daughter, Betty, with her cousin, Abigail Wil-liams, and her friend, Ann Putnam, spent their days listening to mystic-filled tales told by Tituba, a slave the Parrises brought with them from Barbados. Tituba told the girls about witchery, fortune-telling, and magic spells, and afterwards the girls had convulsive fits. The only diagnosis the doctor offered was witchcraft.”

  “The girls must have been playing a joke,” Sarah said. “Or maybe they were put up to it by Parris himself. After all, he was probably afraid of losing his job.”

  “The girls were coerced into naming their demonic tormen-tors, and they named women who were outcasts, women who didn’t fit into the norms of Salem society. Women who posed a threat to the Puritan demand for conformity. They named Sarah Good, a lame, homeless woman who begged door-to-door with her children. If she were refused alms she’d leave muttering what some called a curse, and her curses were blamed for the death of some livestock one year. They named Sarah Osburn, who married her servant and didn’t attend church, scandalous behaviors then. They also named Tituba herself. After Parris whipped her, a torn, bleeding Tituba confessed to being a witch.”

  “I read about that.” Sarah took a book from the stack, flipped to the index, then turned the page and pointed to the passage. “‘The Devil came to me and bid me serve him,’ Tituba said.”

  James nodded. “Tituba spoke of demon creatures, black cats, green dogs, pewter-colored birds, and a white-haired man, a master wizard who made her sign the devil’s book in her own blood. She said there were undiscovered witches lurking about whose sole goal was to destroy God-fearing people. Then the girls, Betty, Abigail, and Ann, began accusing others of being witches, and many applauded them. It was up to the good people of Salem to destroy the witches because their souls wouldn’t be safe until Satan was defeated, they said. God must triumph here. After all, battles with the natives raged just miles away, and many lived in fear of an attack. There had been a smallpox epidemic a while before. God must be angry with us, they said. It’s our independent spirit He’s angry with. We are to be good. We are to conform and to follow. The accusations unleashed hysteria, which became fear, which became paranoia. That was the true mad-ness, there, in the witch hunts. People began to accuse others of witchcraft because they didn’t like them, because they wanted attention, because they wanted retribution for some slight they felt, because they wanted the land the accused lived on, just because…”

  He couldn’t go on. Speaking about it felt uncomfortable, painful, like old clothes too small to fit, but you lay on the bed, zipper up anyway, and walk around with a pinching ache. He had to shake himself back into that moment in the library with Sarah. He stood up, walked to the stacks, pulled a few random volumes off the shelves, flipped through them, put them back. He turned to Sarah, saw her waiting, her face soft, her smile easy. He could have looked at her all night.

  “There you are, Sarah!”

  Jennifer came around the corner, and when she saw Sarah and James together she smiled that conspiratorial grin that was becoming her trademark. “I didn’t mean to disturb you two. I’ve been waiting to go on my break, but I couldn’t go until you came back, Sarah.”

  “I’m sorry, Jen. James was telling me about the Salem Witch Trials and I lost track of time.”

  Jennifer turned to James. “Was he?”

  James ignored Jennifer. He gathered Sarah’s stack of books and walked her to the librarians’s desk, setting the books on the shelf where she pointed. When he saw the time he realized he didn’t want to leave.

  “I have to go to class,” he said. “Will you be here after?”

  “I work until closing tonight,” Sarah said.

  “See you later then?”

  He waited. He thought it took her longer than it should have to answer. Finally, she smiled.

  “Yes. See you later.”

  He left the library feeling lighter than he had in oh so many years. He hoped, as they talked, that he felt Sarah softening toward him. He had to remember to keep control. Always keep control. He was determined. Sarah would not know. When you have a secret to keep, you must keep it. There is no other way.

  After his first class that night he saw Timothy waiting for him. Timothy was leaning against the back wall with his arms crossed over his chest, waiting while James finished writing the assign-ment for his next class on the whiteboard. James didn't know what to do about the boy who looked too young to be in college. So far, Timothy had managed to avoid attention because he stayed so quiet. But that night he looked upset, and James braced himself.

  “What is it, Timothy? Having problems with your paper on Great Expectations?”

  Timothy shook his head, the frustration obvious in his close-pulled lips and flat-black eyes. He paced the room. “Silly? Is that always going to be everyone’s reaction? Or evil? Or villains?”

  “Are you still thinking about that?”

  “I’m tired of having to hide.”

  James watched the students in the hallway wandering past the open door. “You have to be more careful than that,” he said. “I have another class coming in. Besides, you should be less afraid of what people are saying and more afraid of what they’re doing.”

  “But we’re real. We’re more real because we last forever.”

  “Forever is a long time. It’s a difficult concept for people who have only decades, perhaps a century at best.”

  “But that doesn’t make us silly.”

  “No, it doesn’t make us silly, but people aren’t ready to know. Bad things happen when people are confronted with things they don’t understand.”

  “So we have to keep hiding?”

  “Yes, for the foreseeable future we have to keep hiding.”

  “Fine.”

  James had seen that sour expression before. They had had that conversation countless times.

  “Timothy, the only certainly I have ever had in this existence is the need to keep moving. I look like I’m thirty so I can settle somewhere for maybe ten years since I might be able to pass for a young-looking forty, but then it’s time for me to leave.”

  “That’s my point. I like living here and I don’t want to move. It’s not fair to Howard to have to leave because of me.”

  “Howard knew what he was getting into when he became your guardian, and he loves you for who you are the way you love him for who he is no matter what night of the month it is. I’ve found it’s best to move on before anyone notices anything odd about me and pulls together an angry mob to chase me away with torches and pitchforks.”

  “People don’t use torches and pitchforks any more.”

  “I know. These days their weapons are more far-reaching and dangerous. You don’t know how people can overreact when they don’t understand something. You haven’t lived it like I have.”

  “You’ve been shuffling from here to there and back again for so long. Aren’t you sick of it?”

  “Yes, but it can’t be helped. That’s the way it needs to be.”

  Timothy huffed and left at a flash, slamming the door so hard it nearly swung off its hinges. The students walking into the room hardly seemed to notice, and James taught his next class, which went by in a blur. When his last class was ove
r he made his way back to the library, up to his office to grab a pen and some papers that needed grading, then down to the main floor. He stepped out of the elevator, smelled the air, and caught her scent. Straw-berries and cream. He went around to the stacks and saw her, Sarah, pulling books from a wheelie cart, checking Dewey deci-mal numbers on the spines, sliding them into their slots on the shelves. Her eyes brightened when she saw him. He hoped that meant she was happy to see him.

  “Hello again,” she said.

  “Have you read more about the witch trials?” he asked.

  “I haven’t had time. How was class?”

  “It was…interesting.” He wouldn’t tell her how he hardly remembered his classes because he was too consumed by thoughts of her. He certainly wouldn’t tell her about Timothy’s angst. He chose a desk nearby, sat down, and spread his papers out in front of him. He picked one from the pile and began reading and making comments in the margins.

  She peered over his shoulder to see what he was doing. “Wouldn’t you rather work in your office?” she asked.

  “I prefer working down here sometimes. During the night it can seem like everyone in Salem is sleeping, and I like that even after dark the library bustles with energy. There’s life in here.”

  “There’s life in here during the day too. You should try it some time.”

  “Perhaps I should.”

  He glanced across to the opposite end of the library where Jennifer stamped books behind the librarians’s desk. As she worked, a man James didn’t recognize waited to speak to her. He was a short, nervous-looking fellow in a suit and tie, uncom-fortably formal among the relaxed young college crowd wearing t-shirts and blue jeans, even more formal than the professors who were also mostly the t-shirt and blue jeans type.

  “Excuse me,” the man said. He handed her a business card which she looked over.

  “Can I help you, Mr. Hempel?” she asked.

  “I’m looking for a professor named Wentworth. I was just by his office and one of his students said she saw him in here. Is he around somewhere?”

  “Is there a problem?”

  James looked away, not wanting Sarah, the man, or anyone else noticing that he could understand their conversation though he was too far away. He didn’t know the man and couldn’t guess what he might want, though he felt some foreboding at the man’s sudden intrusion into his private world. James watched Sarah, who had turned back to shelving books, and he hoped she would finish soon.

  “Nothing like that,” the man said. “I’m writing an article for the Salem News and I wanted to ask him a few questions. Just looking for a source.”

  “That’s Professor Wentworth across there,” Jennifer said. “The blond man in the blue shirt wearing glasses.”

  James resumed writing, his gaze focused on the paper. He didn’t turn around when he heard heavy, plodding footsteps behind him.

  “Professor Wentworth? James Wentworth?”

  James looked at the man. “Yes?” he said.

  The man handed him a business card that read Kenneth Hempel, Staff Writer, The Salem News.

  “How do you do, Professor. I wanted to ask a few questions for an article I’m writing. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No, not at all. Please,” James gestured to an empty chair beside him, “sit down. What is your article about?”

  “Supernatural happenings in Salem.”

  James laughed. “That’s not particularly original, is it, Mr. Hempel? Supernatural happenings in Salem have been a topic of discussion for over three hundred years.”

  “But I have a unique angle. The stories I’m going to be telling are true.”

  James pushed his glasses back on his nose. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know if I can help you. I teach literature. I can tell you any-thing you want to know about Dickens and Shakespeare, even Jane Austen or John Keats, but I’m afraid the supernatural is not my sphere. I’d be happy to help you get in touch with one of the religious studies professors here.”

  “It isn’t specifically the supernatural I’m interested in. It’s vampires.”

  “Vampires. Really.”

  James glanced at Sarah, who was whispering to a student. She didn’t seem to notice them. He was grateful to the student and hoped the young man had a complicated question that would keep her busy awhile. At that moment, he wished, more than anything, that she would leave for the other side of the library, or home.

  “That’s right. I understand you know a lot about vampires.”

  “Where did you get that idea?”

  “A trusted source.”

  James studied the reporter, his hands forming a triangle under his chin. He had to appear nonchalant, like this inquisition was the most natural conversation in the world.

  “Well,” he said, “I can discuss Bram Stoker’s Dracula with you if you like. There’s certainly a lot of vampire literature out there. Some of the books aren’t half bad, even if it’s not my favorite genre.”

  “I’m not interested in literary vampires, Professor. I’m interes-ted in real vampires that walk the streets right here in Salem and probably all over the world.”

  James tried to see beneath the lines in the reporter’s face, lines so deeply ingrained it was as if every smile the man ever had was forced across his lips. When James didn’t see any clues there he wished he could read the man’s mind. He pushed his glasses against his nose as he considered his reply.

  “Vampires aren’t real,” he said. “They’re legends, figments of people’s dark imaginations.”

  “But you’re wrong, Professor. Vampires are fact, not fiction. I’m sure of it.”

  “In that case you might want to try the Supernatural Tour here in Salem. I haven’t taken it myself, too scary for me, but it’s supposed to go around the creepy corners of town searching for ghosts and talking about vampire folklore, explaining how early New England settlers tried to stop the undead from haunting them. They say people run screaming from it because they’re so scared. Seems to be just what you’re looking for. Maybe you’ll see a real vampire.”

  “Maybe I will. So you’re new to Salem?”

  James heard the rattling of the wheels as Sarah pushed the book cart to the shelf directly behind him. She didn’t seem to be listening, busy as she was, but he wasn’t sure. He had to fight the urge to grab Hempel by the neck with his teeth and dump him out the window. Instead, he answered the reporter’s questions as quickly as he could, hoping that the nuisance would then leave him alone. Forever would be nice.

  “You could say that,” James said.

  “Where were you before you came here?”

  “Washington State.”

  “Were you with family?”

  “I have friends there.”

  “How long were you there?”

  “A few years.”

  “And you went to Harvard, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  Hempel nodded as he took a pen from his briefcase, pulled out a yellow legal pad, and jotted some notes. “When did you graduate? You look rather young to be such a distinguished pro-fessor.”

  James looked at Sarah, who had stopped working and was now watching them through the open slot on the shelf. How much she had heard, he couldn’t guess from her blank expression. From the corner of his eye he saw Hempel watching him watch Sarah, and the reporter jotted something on his notepad.

  “I don’t know how distinguished I am,” James said. “I teach at a small state college.”

  “But you also have a degree from Cambridge. Didn’t you teach there as well?”

  “I’m hardly the only person to ever have the name James Wentworth.” It wasn’t the greatest comeback, but James was at a loss, concerned about what this man knew.

  “But you do have a degree from Cambridge, and you have taught there.”

  James let out a frustrated sigh. “I’ve never been to England, so I’ve never been to Cambridge. I’m sorry, but is your article about vampires or about me?”
r />   Hempel stood up and extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, Professor. We’ll talk again.”

  James shook his head. “I have a cold. I don’t want to get you sick.”

  “It’s all right,” Hempel said, keeping his hand out. “I have a cold too.”

  James didn’t want to be more conspicuous, so he shook the reporter’s hand as quickly as he could. But the man wouldn’t let go. Hempel pulled James’s fingers close to his face and inspected them as if he had never seen another man’s hand before.

  “You should put some gloves on, Professor. You’re cold as the dead.”

  Kenneth Hempel smiled as he left.

  When the reporter disappeared past the metal detectors, Sarah walked to James. He braced himself, concerned about what she might have overheard.

  “Who was that?” she asked.

  “Someone from the newspaper. He wanted some information for an article he’s writing, but I wasn’t able to help him.”

  Sarah looked in the direction Hempel had gone. “He seemed kind of creepy.”

  James laughed. “I thought so too.”

  He said good night to Sarah and went up to his office, giving Hempel time to leave campus. He didn’t want to run into the reporter on his way home. As he sat at his desk he worried about what the reporter would do if he knew the truth. And he worried about how Sarah would feel if she knew. But more than Kenneth Hempel, even more than Sarah, he was troubled by the madness he knew would infect everyone everywhere if his secret went pub-lic. If make-believe suddenly became real-life. When the library was deserted and everyone else had gone home, when the cam-pus was dark and the parking lot empty, when a hint of dawn glowed the thinnest ribbon of gold on the horizon, James made his way home alone and anxious in the darkness.