by Aaron Galvin
“Pray,” Reverend Corwin speaks. “What trouble is this?”
I watch the women whisper to one another. The men fold their arms and shake their heads with no regard of hiding their disdain. Children I’ve watched Rebecca play with are ushered behind their mothers’ skirts.
Is this what I risk my life for? To hear my name whispered, mocked, and disapproved of?
Mr. Bradbury leans on the butt of his rifle. “This stranger has corrupted Paul Kelly’s daughter. Aye, and she Wesley Greene! Careful she don’t send her spirit to torment your wife next, David!”
Mr. Greene backs away from Wesley. Almost like he fears it may be possible.
“Father,” Wesley says in disbelief. “No one has corrupted me, nor spirits been sent out. We came only—”
“We know what you have come for,” Reverend Corwin sneers. “Honest men said Paul Kelly treated Ruth Martin. The next morn, she and all her family lay dead. Aye, and their home and lands burnt to ash!”
I think to refute him, but my voice is lost amongst the many gasps and Mrs. Bradbury’s rising voice.
“And my neighbors too,” she says, her voice shrill and cold. “The good Bailey family. They had the same evil brought down on them. Their daughter, Charlotte, befriended this girl, this Sarah Kelly!”
Priest draws closer to me. The blade of his tomahawk twitches. I notice his gaze falls on Mr. Bradbury. A moment later, I understand why.
No longer does Mr. Bradbury idly lean on the butt of his rifle. He has brought the barrel to aim.
“I smell witchcraft here!” Mrs. Bradbury continues. “I heard it said Paul Kelly once lived in Salem. Mayhap he brought the evils there back with him!”
Others in the crowd take up her claim. I cannot believe this. It is as I read in Thomas Putnam’s journal. A new Salem, come alive with rampant fear run amok.
“My Father were a righteous man,” I shout back at her. “Goodman Greene said the same not a moment ago.”
They will not hear me, nor will they listen to Wesley’s claims. The veins on his neck pulse from yelling to silence them, but his voice is drowned; too consumed are they by the rumors spreading amongst them like wildfire.
“I have oft been heard to say her family did not come to own such fine lands by mere chance,” Mrs. Bradbury says above the din.
“Aye, she has,” a few of the other parishioners take up her claim.
Their words freeze me. How do they make such claims with straight faces?
I see no goodness here. They are naught but dogs gone wild and foaming at the mouth. And there, timidly hiding toward the back, I see Emma.
She looks at me as one helpless to her fortunes.
“Emma!” I say.
She shrinks further at hearing her name called.
“You went with me that night,” I say. “You saw of what I speak! Aye, and saw Ruth outside church not two days past. Tell them I speak truth!”
Emma shakes her head. Tears drip down her cheeks. “I-I know not of what she speaks.”
My frigidness melts at her betrayal. I quickly fetch a stone up and heave it at her. “You lie!”
My aim is poor though. I miss Emma, but hit Mrs. Bradbury. She falls as one shot by an arrow. She rolls about the ground, moaning.
Emma is so stunned by my action she stands there still, an easy target to my mind. I kneel to pick another stone.
Priest restrains me.
“Be gone with you!” Reverend Corwin waves us away. “We have no need of your wickedness here!”
I kick and scream. “I came to warn you! Came at the risk of my own life and you dare send me away?”
Priest drags me back to the wagon with Wesley’s help. Only when I see Mr. Greene leading his wife from the fray do I pause.
Wesley’s mother quivers in her husband’s arms, but Mr. Greene will not allow her to rejoin their ranks. He loads her into the wagon with Wesley’s help.
“Mother, it is I,” he speaks softly, clutching her closer. “It is your Wesley.”
Mr. Greene climbs up to sit beside her. “Peace, Goodwife.”
I scarcely realize we are moving.
Priest sits beside me in the driver’s bench. His gaze fixed on the horizon where the last rays of sunlight wink goodbye. The reins smack harshly as he makes every effort to call more speed from Moses and Hickory. His stallion runs swiftly in front, leading the other two.
I glance over my shoulder at the church my Father helped raise.
Emma is on her hands and knees. Without me to cry witchery against, the crowd has turned on her, the closest associate to a witch they can find.
Benjamin King, the boy she once professed to love, stands over her with a dirt clod in hand. “You all heard what Sarah Kelly said!” he shouts. “This one is a witch too!”
The crowd roars their approval when he throws the clod in her face.
“Turn around,” I cry to Priest.
He will not. We are thirty yards from the woods before I understand he is not bound for the highroad. Priest shows no sign of slowing. He drives us toward a gap in the trees. I am not sure we will fit between them. Ten yards away, he shoves me out of the wagon.
My fall is quick, and I have no time to scream. The ground steals my breath away, even as I roll. My groans are met with the snapping of wood, the screaming of horses, and those of Wesley’s mother.
I come to a stop, gasping for air. Flat on my back, I stare up at the sky. Then I hear it…
In the distance, steadily growing nearer, the quiet beginnings of a dark symphony orchestrated by flutes and drums.
Night has come.
-15-
I hear hooves gallop toward me. Before I can move, the sound vanishes as a dark shadow leaps over me. The hooves return to earth a few feet away, bound for the church.
I prop myself up on my good elbow to better see. Priest.
The shadow came when his steed leapt over me. He rides hunched low over the stallion’s back, a perched vulture with his head dipped between his shoulders.
From a distance, I see torches lit in the wagon circle. I no longer see the parishioners, but I hear them singing hymns. They must have returned inside the church, hoping to sing their fear and doubt away.
My shoulder aches from the hard landing, yet nothing feels broken that were not so before. I hurry to my feet, and then the wagon. One look tells me Priest misjudged the trees in his haste to enter the wood. The horses made it through, but the wagon is stuck between them. The front two wheels are shattered. One in the rear may be fixable, but it will take time.
We have no such luxury.
Mr. Greene climbs out, a pained look about his person as he groans and rubs the back of his neck. His hair is a disheveled mess. I have no idea where his wide-brimmed hat has flown. He smacks the wagon side.
Still in the wagon bed, Mrs. Greene whimpers. She clutches to the sides as one fearing she may yet be thrown. “Oh, husband. We should never have left,” she cries.
Wesley leads both Hickory and Moses around the wagon. He seems puzzled as he lifts the tattered scraps that once yoked them. Even if we could have fixed the wagon, now there is no point.
“Why did you cut their reins?” I ask.
“I did not. Priest must have ere he jumped,” Wesley says. “Why would he sabotage us?”
I understand Priest’s intentions then. The wagon would slow us. He would not wish it left in working order for the witches to use.
“Because he is a madman like the others said!” Mr. Green shouts. I watch him lift his frightened wife out of the back. “Are you well, wife?”
“Aye,” she says. “Frightened is all.”
I do not believe her. Her lips pursed, she welcomes her husband’s embrace too easily for one claiming all is well. Even now, her fingers tremble.
“Wesley,” Mr. Greene says. “You are coming with us back to church. We shall be safer there with night upon us.”
I know what Wesley’s answer will be even before he speaks.
&nbs
p; “I stay with Sarah.”
“You disobey me—confound it all!” Mr. Green looks to the sky. “What is that accursed racket?”
I venture out beyond the tree line. Across the open field, I see nigh fifty torches. They move inside the woods opposite us. All bound toward church.
“They are coming,” I say quietly.
Wesley hurries to my side. “You are sure of it?”
“Who is coming?” Mrs. Green asks.
The music grows louder. My fears swell with each note.
A shadow rides toward us.
I hear a girl’s wailing. Without thought, I push Wesley and his family back inside the woods to cover us.
Priest bursts through a moment later, holding Emma upright in front of him. A bruise already forms upon her cheek from the dirt clod thrown by Benjamin King.
“S-Sarah,” she says. “W-why did you tell…tell them I went with you. Benjamin, h-he…”
The bleater cannot even finish.
Priest dismounts. He pulls Emma from the stallion and into his arms.
“Were you born daft, sir?” Mr. Greene says to him. “You must have been to wreck the wagon so. If Paul Kelly lived—”
Priest ignores him. He carries Emma toward the wagon and sets her gently inside it. Then, he furiously saws Hickory’s harness loose with his long dagger.
“What are you doing?” Mr. Greene demands.
The harness falls beside the monstrous beast with a heavy thump. Emma jumps at the sound. Sniffling back more tears, she buries her head in her arms.
Priest wastes no time. He goes to Moses next and makes short work of his harness also.
Mr. Greene strides toward him.
I reach out to stop him. “Please, sir,” I say. “We will be faster without the wagon. I know that is why he cut us loose.”
Mr. Greene will not listen. He lays his hand upon Priest’s shoulder. “Stop—”
Priest wheels and catches Mr. Greene by the neck. In two steps, he pins him against a tree. His free hand brings the dagger up close for Mr. Greene to see.
“Don’t!” I say, careful not to raise my voice too loud for anyone nearby to overhear. “He meant no harm. They do not understand what is coming!”
Priest coldly looks upon me. He releases Mr. Greene and points the tip of his long dagger at Wesley. I watch his point motion to Hickory, then Emma.
Wesley gathers what he means faster than I. “No,” he says. “You take her. I will protect Sarah.”
“What?” I say.
“He wants me to ride with Emma.” Wesley explains. “I will not.”
Priest again points, more insistent this time.
“I will not!” Wesley says.
Everything happens too quickly for me to react.
Priest covers the distance between them in seconds.
I see Wesley swing at Priest’s jaw.
Priest ducks it at the last. With a quick sweep of his foot, and a hard shove, he takes Wesley to the ground. He drops his knee onto Wesley’s chest to steal his breath. Faster than anyone can move, Priest twirls his dagger. He buries the blade an inch from Wesley’s ear.
I hear Wesley’s ragged breathing even above my own. Without realizing it, my fingers clenched the sides of my dress.
Priest grabs the lapels of Wesley’s jacket and pulls him to his feet. He shoves my would-be protector toward Emma, ending their one-sided debate.
Wesley looks at me as one shamed, but he will say naught. He offers Emma his hand. “Come,” he says. “We must ride for the Kelly farm.”
Emma shakes her head. She looks past all of us toward church. “My mother and father—”
A rifle’s shot echoes like a cannon across the field, followed by a cackle. More shots follow in quick succession, not as a single volley, but scattered. Panicked.
I run to the edge of the woods with the others close behind. Mrs. Greene gasps at the sight. She draws closer to her husband. “Oh, David…”
Torches in the wagons light the sentries’ faces. Folly. Each torch reveals to the witches where men are positioned.
The sentries fire again, their rifles create brilliant flashes of orange-yellow with smoke following after.
For every shot I hear, the sound of a man screaming follows after. One-by-one, I watch the sentry torches extinguished as easily as blowing out candles.
Mr. Greene starts forward. “We must help them!”
Even I know the six of us together would be hard-pressed to aid but a few of our neighbors. I do not know whether Mr. Greene is brave and I the coward, or if I am wise for desiring to retreat. Mayhap I am heartless for wishing no more than to leave, but I would rather be labeled a live coward than a brave corpse.
I have to say nothing, however.
Priest stops Mr. Greene from leaving.
Strange, but I did not see him there before. How did he move up so quietly behind us?
I gather Mr. Greene means to argue further. He loses the urge upon inspection of his wife; her hand glued to her mouth in horror at what we witness.
The sentries’ cries of suffering bring a halt to the parishioners’ singing; replaced by the pounding of drums, the cackling of witches, and war cries of men. Horses neigh and move at the strangers flitting amongst them. Dots darken the windows inside the brightly lit church.
I think they must be the faces of those who mocked our claim not twenty minutes prior. I will them to retreat from the windows even as Bishop’s earlier words rise to haunt me.
They will all die tonight.
Two of the sentry wagons burst into flame. Horses buck and pull at their yokes.
What fool kept the skittish beasts hitched?
The fire brushes at their flanks, gives them added cause to scream. Spreads fear and discourse amongst those still living.
I see a sentry leap from his wagon. He flees for the church, his torch bobbing with every step. “Let me in!” he shouts. “Open the doors! I beg of you!”
Mr. Bradbury…
For a brief moment, I find a dark joy in the terror pervading his voice. Now do you know a witch when you see one, old man?
I push the thought away, lest I be consumed with hate like Hecate and Thomas Putnam.
One of the fired wagons rolls toward the church. The valiant few sentries, who yet held the perimeter, abandon their positions.
I hear them call to one another. Shout they must keep the church from catching flame. I watch the remaining sentries cut down by shadowy blades ere they can ward off the flame’s determined progression.
With no one left to stop it, the fired wagon rolls unhalted toward the church doors and Mr. Bradbury.
I warrant he never sees his demise coming.
The wagon pins him, envelopes him in flames. The fire races upwards, wreathing the church’s dry wooden doorway, leaving Mr. Bradbury a human torch to writhe in its sweltering heat.
A pair of ladders lifts from the gathering crowd of black-hooded witches and white men dressed in animal skins. More than a few scamper up their wooden steps. Some carry buckets, others torches. All seem to fly across the roof.
“God help them,” Mr. Greene utters. “All those innocent souls…”
We watch helplessly as they drain the buckets down the chimney.
The screams inside the church are immediate. Doors that would not open for Mr. Bradbury now burst off their hinges in the parishioner's haste to exit. A heavy smoke pours out alongside those choking on it. It rises in the sky, reminiscent of the pillared whirlwind that carried the prophet Elijah to heaven.
The windows shatter as the many inside abandon their sanctuary, exiting through the double doors.
Their hopes of life and fresh air are short-lived.
I see all met with fast daggers and even crueler taunts.
More screams pervade the night sky. Even from afar, it does not take much imagination to conjure horrific images of their fates.
They are being scalped alive…
Wesley stands beside me, his face dr
ained of color. “Like herding sheep,” he says breathlessly.
A horse quietly neighs behind us, yet still I jump.
Priest stands beside all three mounts. He motions his head to go.
No one resists this time.
Mr. and Mrs. Green hurriedly climb atop Moses.
Wesley aids Emma onto Hickory’s back.
I swing astride Priest’s stallion. He leaps up behind me. His arms rise beneath my own to enshroud and bar me from falling. I lean backward, comforted by the feeling of his hard chest against me.
Even bearing two riders, Priest’s stallion is far swifter than Hickory and Moses. He constantly pulls the hairs on its neck to slow its gait that the others might keep up. I do not mind it. Each time the stallion pulls at his touch, Priest’s forearm clutches me tighter around my chest.
“Stop, Emma!” Wesley says.
Priest turns us back.
Wesley struggles to keep Emma upright. He slows Hickory to a trot. I see Emma choking for crying so hard. A moment later, she vomits to the side. “My m-mother…” she heaves. “F-father.”
My heart goes out to her. By now they are amongst the dead if they are lucky. If not, they will be tortured or scalped with the others who yet live.
“Emma, we must go,” Wesley urges.
“N-no,” she cries. “We must g-go b-back.”
“Emma,” I say. She looks up in recognition of my voice. “We must hurry. They will catch us if we linger.”
“S-Sarah, I am s-sorry.”
“There will be time for those words later,” I say. “We must be gone from here. Sit up, no—”
A war cry cuts me off, so close I fear it comes from Priest’s own mouth.
Our stallion rears.
The painted brave appeared almost from thin air. His face is pockmarked with scratches. Even now they seem to bleed as he looks upon me with furious intent.
I am the last thing he sees on this earth.
In one fell swoop, Priest cleaves the brave’s skull in two with his tomahawk. He wiggles the blade to dislodge it and kicks the body away.
