by Megan Chance
“Dear God,” he murmured. “What has become of us?”
I could not answer him. The evil that had come into this house of God was unbearable, and terror stayed with me as I followed Sam from the meetinghouse into the dusk of early evening. I stood there a moment, watching my neighbors leave in close-knit groups, listening to the whispers. I saw the suspicion in their eyes as they regarded each other, and I thought back to what Francis had said days ago, about how no good could come of this. Others. There were others. How could we fight this? How had Satan gained such a foothold without our knowing?
But I knew the answer to that question already. It did not take much to give the Devil an open door. ’Twas as simple as a hungry heart, a soul that yearned.…
“Come,” Sam said to me. “Let’s to home. I’m weary of this place.”
I nodded, and as he moved to the path, I started after him, stopping only when I dropped a glove. I turned to pick it up and saw from the corner of my eye a movement—a shadow hovering around the corner of the meetinghouse—and it caught me. There was a familiarity to the furtiveness. I straightened and turned fully to look, and ’twas then I realized who was hiding from me.
Charity.
Chapter 25
“GO ON,” I CALLED TO SAM. “I’VE LEFT SOMETHING IN THE MEETINGhouse.”
“I’ll wait,” he said.
“No. I won’t keep you from your family. This might take some time.”
He nodded, though reluctantly, and I waited until he’d turned and started to walk again before I hurried back to the meetinghouse. My daughter had disappeared, but I made my way to the darkened side of the building where I’d seen her. ’Twas cold, and the wind blew the shadows before me; the cold, icy stink of the swamp mud beyond was heavy here. Charity was not to be seen. I sped my step, nearly running around back, and I saw her huddled against the wall, as if she could hide by melting into the weathered clapboards.
She looked up and saw me, and then shrank into her cape and the shadow of her broad-brimmed hat, but she didn’t try to move or run away. As I neared, I saw that ’twas not because she was meekly and submissively waiting for her punishment, but because she was paralyzed with fear. Her eyes were large and unseeing, her lips trembling, and I saw the constant movement of her hands beneath her cape.
“Ti-Tituba,” she whispered as I came to her. “I heard h-her.”
“You should not have come,” I said gently. “I told you to stay home with Susannah.”
Her gaze leaped to mine. She swallowed; it seemed to be difficult and painful. Her mouth worked as if she wanted to speak, but no words came.
I sighed and touched her arm. “Come with me, child. We’d best get home before it turns dark.”
“Aye,” she said unsteadily. “Aye.”
I held out my arm, and she took it, stumbling along after me as I made my way around the corner of the meetinghouse, back toward the road. I was anxious to be gone; I felt still the evil of that room, and I pulled my daughter closer into my side.
She was shaking, her teeth chattering. The chilblains on her face had become scabbed from her constant rubbing. Saturday seemed too long to wait to send her to town. After what had happened today, I could not imagine letting her linger here, with Tituba’s confessions tormenting her and her friends lapsing into fits. I resolved to take her to town tomorrow. No doubt Poole would understand, once I told him the affairs of the village—if he had not heard already.
“What possessed you to come?” I asked her finally.
Her glance was quick, horrified. “I…I had to know…what she would say.”
Uncomfortably, I remembered the way Tituba’s gaze had shifted to my daughter’s face when we’d visited the parsonage together. I wanted to ask why that was, but I was afraid, and as if Charity read my mind, her shaking grew worse. I pulled her close, trying to still it with my strength.
“Wh-what will happen now?” she asked. “Wh-what will they do with her?”
I shrugged. “She will be urged to confess everything. Then there will be a trial.”
“W-will she hang? Will those other wi-witches hang?”
“If they are guilty.”
“And what of the De-devil, then?”
I tried to reassure her. “Satan will leave this village when he sees we will not tolerate him here.”
She nodded against my shoulder, but I knew she did not quite believe me. ’Twas no surprise—I was not sure I believed myself.
“Father, you will not tolerate him, either, will you? You will help to fight him?”
“Aye,” I reassured her. “I will help to fight him.”
We were home quickly. The house smelled of stew and bread. Jude’s innocent babble filled the air, along with Susannah’s low replies.
I nearly had to push Charity inside. Jude quieted. Susannah turned from the fire.
Her glance went past me to Charity, and she straightened in surprised confusion. “Charity, I thought—”
“I snuck out,” Charity said, bowing her head. She looked contrite, though I knew she was not. Neither was her “Forgive me” sincere, but this time I said nothing.
Susannah paused. “’Twas no harm done, I suppose. I trust you ran into no trouble.”
“Nothing but trouble,” I said. “It seems the Devil has made a place for himself in Salem Village.”
“The examination—”
“There was a confession,” I said. “The slave woman confessed to being a witch.”
Susannah went still. “She said that? She said she was a witch?”
“Aye. And that there were others. Good and Osborne among them.”
“Others? More than just the three?”
I nodded grimly. Jude stared up at me with eyes as big as an owl’s, and I said, “We’ll pray tonight. Tomorrow I think we should fast. ’Twill be our own day of humiliation.”
“We shall pray Satan away,” Jude said.
“If it were only so easy,” Charity murmured.
Susannah made a sound, and I glanced at her and saw her eyes were dark with worry. She searched my face, and I turned away and hoped she would take my silence as a sign that we would talk later.
She seemed to. Her voice was deceptively light as she said, “Well, if we are to fast tomorrow, we’d best eat well tonight.”
As she laid the food before us and took her own seat, we fell into silence. Even my prayer of thanksgiving did not have staying power. Charity barely touched her supper, and my own stomach was churning, so I could not eat. Jude was the only one of us with any appetite, and it was too soon before we were done and the table cleared. I was sitting with my daughters at the fire, reading Psalm 78:49 for their lesson.
The candles had burned low when I finished and sent the girls to bed. I did not tell Charity of my plan to take her into town the next day, but let her go to bed protected by prayers. When she turned back to me as she took to the stairs, I saw again that plea in her eyes. You will help to fight him?
When they were gone, I said, “Tomorrow I’ll take Charity to the Pooles’. I will not wait for Saturday.”
“’Twas that bad, then? The examinations?”
“Aye.”
“Did the others confess?”
“They didn’t need to. The girls’ torments were obvious. And then…Tituba…”
“Is this something real, Lucas?” she asked quietly.
“Who would confess to this if it were not?”
“The girls are persuasive. ’Tis a shock to see them. But perhaps—”
“You think they dissemble?”
She hesitated. “Perhaps some of them. I have some experience with Mary Walcott.”
“What experience?” I demanded. “What can you know of a seventeen-year-old?”
“I once was one,” she said. She surveyed me steadily. “You are angry with me, Lucas.”
I shook my head. “Not angry. But…”
“What?”
“This sin between us must end. I am more determine
d of it than ever. The Devil already has too much sway here.”
She was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, “Oh, you foolish, foolish man.” She knelt before me where I sat on the bench at the tableboard, her skirts billowing.
“Do not touch me,” I said, holding up my hands to keep her away. “Keep your distance.”
“Why?” she asked.
She was too close already. “You know the answer to that,” I managed.
“I can no more help the fact that I share blood with my sister than you can change who you are.” She took my hands, and I tried to pull away, but she grasped me hard, the balls of her fingers pressing tight into my palms. She leaned forward so that her breasts brushed my knees. “We could leave this place. ’Tis long past time, now that this…this Devil is in the air. We could take the children and go. There must be somewhere else in this godforsaken land. North? South?”
New York. The name flashed through my mind, shocking me, that this should be a temptation too.…“There is no place,” I ground out. “Release me.”
“I will not. You think you can make this terror go simply by ending what is between us, but you can’t, Lucas. All you will do is make it worse. I won’t let you do it.”
“You have no choice. ’Tis my decision,”
“No,” she said. There was a force and determination in her voice that held me. She let go of me, but then she rose, so quickly that I did not know what she was about. She took my face between her hands and leaned close so that her lips were nearly on mine. “Tell me that you can resist this, Lucas, and I will leave you, I promise it. Tell me you do not want to kiss me, and I will go away.”
She had given me the key. Such a simple thing. I don’t want you. I will not kiss you. ’Twould be so easy.
I pulled her down to me, openmouthed, groaning, feeling the will for her eat away everything else: my vow to my daughter and myself, my fears. All were as nothing compared to this.
She answered me back, meeting me in primitiveness, and entangled we moved from the bench, stumbling together to the parlor.
I kicked the door closed. Together we found the bed and fell upon it, and there was no thought, only longing and the urge to fulfill it. I felt her legs about my hips; I heard her moans. My breeches were off. Her hands were on my skin, both soft and rough, urging and restrained. I rode her with an unconscious pleasure I had never felt, not ever. She was moaning beneath me. Lifting her hips. Calling out my name. “Lucas…Lucas…”
Someone screamed.
The sound penetrated my consciousness at the same moment I came. I felt Susannah jerk beneath me, and as if in a dream, I turned. I saw the open door, the light of a candle slanting across the floor, into my face, blinding me. I saw a figure, and then a face.
Charity. Charity standing at the open door, her eyes wide in wordless shock. She raised her hands, shaking, dropping the candle so it spattered wax onto the bed curtains, rolling still alight across the floor. She screamed again, a wretched, endless echo.
I jerked from Susannah, grabbing for my breeches and yanking them on. “Charity. My God, Charity.”
I reached for my daughter, and she wrenched away, horrified. I grabbed her, trying to quiet her, but she only screamed into my chest and beat and scratched at me. I held on.
“Charity,” Susannah said. “My dear, my dear—”
Charity was shaking so hard her teeth chattered together. She twisted from me, staring at Susannah, who held her skirt to her nakedness, before she fell to the floor, clutching her throat. She was no longer screaming, but her moan was otherworldly, a terrible sound, and she gasped as if choking. In a panic, I grabbed at her hands, trying to pry them loose, but she was stronger than I. Her eyes rolled in her head. She began convulsing on the floor, and I could do nothing but stare at her.
Convulsions. Like Elizabeth Hubbard and Abigail Williams.
I sank to my knees beside my daughter and put my head into my hands. ’Twas too late. Too late. The Devil had her.
And I had handed her to him.
Chapter 26
“LUCAS, YOU MUST GO,” SUSANNAH SAID, YANKING ON HER SKIRTS. The room smelled of acrid smoke and scorched harrateen. Charity gulped air as if she were drowning, her stomach swelling beneath her chemise as if something were alive inside her. “You must get the doctor, and quickly.”
I stared in helpless dismay at my daughter. “What can he do for her now?”
“There must be something. He’s treated the others. Surely he must know—”
“He prays. ’Tis all he can do.”
“Then we need him to pray. You must go to him, Lucas.”
I reached for Charity, and she hissed at me like a cat.
“Don’t touch me!” she screamed, lashing out. Her nails clawed my cheek; the sudden pain startled me and I jumped back. ’Twas what I deserved—this and so much more.
Numbly I rose. “I’ll go for Griggs,” I said, because I could think of nothing else to do. I hurried from the parlor, and Susannah stayed with Charity and did not follow me.
I grabbed my flintlock and my cloak and ran through the darkness to the barn, where I saddled and mounted Saul.
I was hardly aware of how I reached Griggs’s house; only that suddenly I was slamming my fist upon his door, shouting out, “William! William! Wake up!” until the door creaked open beneath my onslaught, and he peered through the crack. His gray hair was stiff and spiky with sleep; his fowling piece was in his hands until he realized who I was.
“Lucas,” he said. “What has happened? What is it? Indians?”
“’Tis an attack of the Devil,” I said to him, and the door opened farther. I saw the dark circles beneath his sagging eyes, his dawning understanding.
“Another afflicted girl,” he said.
“Aye. My daughter. Charity.”
“There’s naught I can do—”
“You will come to see her, William,” I told him. “There is no point in arguing. Whatever your protests, I will not hear them. I cannot leave without you.”
He sighed. “Very well. One moment.” The door closed, and when it opened again, he was ready, his gun in his hand. Beneath his open cloak, he still wore his nightshirt, tucked up and tucked loosely into his breeches so it blousoned nearly to his knees.
I waited impatiently while he saddled his horse, and it seemed hours had passed since I’d left Charity writhing on the floor with Susannah standing over. We rode quickly back, leaving the horses in the yard.
Susannah was alone in the hall. “Where is Charity?” I asked. In alarm, I hurried to the parlor, tearing at the fastenings of my cloak. “Why are you not with her? Dear God, she could hurt herself—”
“She’s asleep, Lucas.” Susannah’s voice was soft and quiet; the meaning of her words did not hit me until I was nearly to the parlor door, and then I stopped in surprise and looked over my shoulder at her.
“Asleep?” I asked. The notion was startling. I could not fathom it, that the Devil had left her so suddenly.…
“Aye. She fell unconscious just after you left.”
Unconscious. ’Twas an odd word choice, as odd as what she offered as truth. “Did you give her something? Some potion?”
“A potion?” Susannah looked confused. “No. I simply held her hand, and she quieted.”
I thought of how I’d tried to take my daughter into my arms and how she’d fought me; my cheek even now stung from her nails. I glanced at Griggs, who was watching Susannah with a strange look, as if he did not believe her explanation, either.
Slowly I turned back to the parlor. I did not know what I expected to see. But there was my daughter, in the bed that Susannah and I had lain upon only an hour before, tucked beneath the scarlet bed rug. My little girl who was no longer a little girl. In sleep, how peaceful she was. I gripped the door frame and filled my eyes with her; ’twas all I could do not to run to her side and grab her hand, to beg for her forgiveness. “’Tis a deep sleep,” I whispered.
I heard Griggs co
me up behind me. “Aye. ’Tis not unusual. Between fits, they are seemingly well, with nothing to show for their torments but a few bite marks, perhaps.”
“Is there nothing you can do for them?” Susannah asked.
“I have no power against the Devil,” William said. “In my own house, I have seen to it that Betty does not harm herself, but more than that…” He sighed again and clapped his hand to my shoulder as he passed by me into the parlor. I watched as he went to Charity, as he leaned down over her, and the energy that had driven me single-mindedly to the doctor’s house and home again dissipated as quickly as a single breath. I was suddenly exhausted.
After a few moments, Griggs turned to me. “Let her sleep. ’Tis best. Keep her as quiet as possible. Prayer seems to work for some of them. For others, it only agitates them further.”
“Is that all I can do?” I asked, hearing the anguish in my voice. “Is there nothing I can give to her?”
“She is not fevered. This is nothing physical, Lucas; ’tis but a spiritual affliction. Whatever beings attack her cannot be swayed by any poultice. She will recover, or not. I cannot tell.”
He moved away from the bed; his visit was over. I knew there was nothing I could do to keep him here. I followed him to the door. “Thank you for coming, William. Forgive me for rousing you from your bed.”
“I wish I could do more,” he said, putting on his hat.
“Shall I ride back with you? ’Tis a dark night.”
“No. I’ve a flintlock on the saddle, and my horse is a fast one.” Griggs went to the door, where he paused, his hand on the lever. Slowly he turned back, his expression troubled. “Has she called out, Lucas?”
“Called out?”
“Has she put a name to the specters tormenting her?”
“Dear God,” I murmured.
“She hasn’t said a name,” Susannah said. I had grown used to her silence; the sound of her voice was painful to hear.
