A Break With Charity: A Story About the Salem Witch Trials (14 page)

"I have made a bargain with the Prince of Darkness so he can appear to others in my shape and hurt them," she added.

"Tell us how he does this," suggested Magistrate Corwin.

"It is not for me to give away the secret of his powers."

The judges became disgusted with her then and waved her away. As she was taken out by the marshals, she cried out to the magistrates, "I will be at your houses tonight. You will suffer torments!"

Bridget Bishop was brought in next.

"Mistress Bishop," said Magistrate Corwin, "you are accused of being a witch. How say you to this charge?"

"I do not know what a witch is."

Immediately the girls in the circle, who were sitting up front in the room, went into fits. They threw themselves on the floor and shrieked and wailed. They rolled their eyes.

"Do you not see their torment?" Corwin asked.

"They are in the silly season of their lives," Bridget answered calmly.

"You keep two ordinaries," Magistrate Hathorne reminded her. "You have been accused of allowing the young people to loiter in your ordinary at Salem Town until all hours of the night. You allow them to play shuffleboard. They make uproars when others sleep."

"This does not a witch make," she retorted.

The girls lay in a heap on the floor in front of her. They twitched their bodies and howled like forest creatures at the time of the full moon. The howling was a terrible thing to hear. It cut through one's bones with its primitive sound.

Magistrate Hathorne banged the table with his gavel. Mary Walcott screamed, "I see Bridget's shape up on that beam. Can't you see it? She sits there mocking me!"

At once, Mary Walcott's brother sprang out of the crowd of spectators, tore his sword from his side, and attacked the place where his sister pointed.

"He has ripped her cloak!" Mary cried out. "See? I heard it ripping!"

"I am innocent to a witch!" Bridget Bishop cried. "I know not what a witch is!"

"Take her away," boomed Magistrate Hathorne. And so she was taken.

Giles Cory was next. He was all of eighty, stoop shouldered, and white of hair. He shuffled down the aisle, as he was brought forward by two marshals.

"Untie his hands," Magistrate Hathorne said. The marshals did so. Immediately the afflicted girls gripped their own wrists and said they were being bitten.

"It is not enough to act the witch at other times?" Magistrate Hathorne asked Cory. "You must do it in the face of authority?"

"I am a poor creature and cannot help it," Cory whimpered.

"Bind his hands!" Magistrate Hathorne said. It was done. The girls stopped their howling. But now other madness followed. Giles Cory tilted his head, and all the girls tilted theirs in kind. He drew in his breath, pondering. They did likewise.

"Such a display of witchcraft is unheard of!" Magistrate Hathorne bellowed. "Take him away!"

The crowd hissed and booed as the old man was taken out. And then they brought in Mary Warren.

"I claim innocence to the charge of witchcraft, Your Honors," she said instantly.

Immediately John Indian and Gertrude Pope rolled to the floor and began tumbling about, clutching their stomachs.

This was too much for Mary Warren at the outset. "I look to God!" she cried out. "I look to God!"

Magistrate Corwin leaned across the table and gazed at her intently, but not without kindness in both voice and manner. "You were but a while ago an afflicted person. How comes this now to pass?"

"I will speak," Mary wailed. "Oh, I will speak."

"Do, girl, speak!" said Corwin.

Johnathan and I looked at each other and held our breaths. Would Mary now give evidence?

"She'll never do it," Johnathan whispered.

And she did not. She tried to speak but choked on her words as if the breath were being drawn out of her by invisible hands. She looked about to faint, but the marshals supported her on either side.

"Oh, I am sorry for it, I am sorry for it! O good Lord, help me! Save me!" she cried out.

"For what are you sorry?" Magistrate Hathorne asked.

"I will tell! I will tell! I will tell!" Mary screamed. But then she fell to the floor, seized by convulsions so bad that the marshals had to restrain her. And then, with everyone in the audience pressing forward to see her fit, and Magistrate Corwin ordering them back as general mayhem ensued, Magistrate Hathorne ordered that she be taken away. And so she was carried out, a lifeless form, to be placed in her upstairs room until she could sufficiently recover to speak again.

As she was being carried out, Ann Putnam, the younger, stood up and in a clear and childish voice explained what had happened to Mary Warren. "The shapes of Martha Cory and Elizabeth Proctor fell on her. They choked her. She fought them off."

"It is like seeing Christ fighting off the Devil in the wilderness," said Magistrate Hathorne. All agreed.

"Let's be gone from this place before I do or say something to have myself named," Johnathan said in disgust.

Outside, I welcomed the relief of rain, pure and cleansing. But there was a dreadful sadness in my soul. Mary Warren would never speak the truth, I could see that now. She would never break away from the circle. I felt a great draining of my spirit, a deep sense of hopelessness. "The truth will never be known now in Salem," I told Johnathan dismally.

But he was cheerful. "The truth will always come out somehow, Susanna," he told me. "Evil cannot prevail in such a place as this. We are good people. If there was one rift in the circle of girls, there can be another. Let's not lose hope."

As he helped me into his carriage, he spoke further on the matter. "I think we should not come to court again," he said. "No good comes from it. I myself will study my books and prepare for Harvard. You, Susanna, have better things to do, helping in your mother's shop. She needs your presence. Daily, I see the strain on her from worrying about William."

"You are right, Johnathan," I murmured.

"If those who remain sane amongst us make the same resolution, witchcraft in Salem will die out," he said. "I am convinced of it."

But witchcraft in Salem was not about to die out. For the girls in the circle had an insatiable appetite now for power and attention. They knew they could destroy anyone, that the magistrates hung on their every word. They would not stop. They had to keep going. It was expected of them.

The next day, nine more warrants were issued, more than ever before.

One was for my mother, Mary English.

THEY CAME AT
night to arrest Mama. It was April 21. The rains of the past few weeks had stopped. The stars, in their fixed places in the heavens, shone brightly upon a Salem Town distilled with spring air.

But first something else happened:

In the hours before they came to arrest Mama I saw Tituba's ship of clouds in the sky.

I was hurrying up English Street so as not to be late for supper. I had been on a mission of mercy for Mama, to the house of George Jacobs. He was elderly and arthritic and lived alone. Mama had sent me with some supper in a pot. Jacob's maidservant, Sarah Churchill, was one of the afflicted girls and therefore too busy accusing people of witchcraft these days to cook for her master. And we conjectured that it would only be a short time before the sharp-tongued Jacobs, who was a town patriarch, would be cried out on. After all, hadn't he called the accusing girls "bitch witches"?

I was almost to our front gate when I saw the ship in the sky. A gust of wind blew off my cap, which went skipping down the street. I ran after it. As I picked it up, I stood drinking in the delicious wind that comes after rain. Overhead, the last of the clouds were being pushed out over the water. I could smell the sea and land fragrances, the lilac buds, and the scents of cherry and apple blossoms.

In the harbor, the sun—which had finally made an appearance this day—was setting. And against its redness the masts of three ships at anchor were etched darkly. I lingered, enjoying the scene. All up and down our street, beams of candlelight were thrown out of the windows onto the brick walks, and I felt a strange surge of peace working through me.

It was then that I saw the cloud in the shape of a ship.

It was above the horizon, as plain as if it were anchored in the harbor. It had a magnificent hull and stately masts, clearly outlined against the sky. It was fully rigged and majestic.

And just as Tituba had said, it flew the skull and crossbones.

I do not know how much time transpired as I stood there, my eyes fixed on that apparition. I was aware of footsteps on the street, of people passing as I dallied, but no one else took notice of my ship in the sky. I heard the night watch calling the hour, six bells; the cries of the gulls swooping overhead; the bark of a dog somewhere; the clop, clop, clopping of a horse pulling a carriage. All these distinct sounds anchored me to the real world.

But my eyes never moved from that vision. Then, just as Tituba had predicted, the shape of the flag seemed to melt from that of a skull and crossbones into that of an English banner, the kind my father flew on his ships. After a few minutes, the outline of the ship changed into a plain cloud again. And I heard Tituba's words:
When this happens, your William will soon be back.

Oh, William, I thought, to think you will be coming home! A rush of happiness flooded me and I hurried to our door, anxious to tell my family. Then I remembered Tituba's admonition to tell no one. And I recollected how my friendship with her was still a secret.

Her other words came to me, also:
The air is black over Salem. The sun is gone from this place.

As I sat at our table, Tituba's dour words receded in my mind. I felt only happiness while in the bosom of my family. Father was full of news from Boston, having just visited his shipyard there. Mary was happily awaiting Thomas Hitchbourne. She had confided to me earlier that he was going to ask our father for her hand this evening.

Apparently she had already told Mama, also, for there were special cakes set out in the company room with the claret for Thomas's arrival. And when he came, he went immediately to the library with Father. Mary was jumping out of her skin, she was so anxious, although she tried to sit properly and work at her crewel by the fire. Mama's face beamed with happiness and pride, and in general there was a great feeling of benevolence all around.

When Thomas and Father emerged from the library, Father's face was wreathed in smiles. "Mary, we have a new member of the family," he said. "Or soon will have."

There were a few moments in which everyone hugged everyone else. There were plans, toasting, laughter. Thomas blushed and told us the marriage would be a year hence, but Mary and Mama were already plotting the festivities. And I glowed secretly inside for the knowledge that William would probably be home for the wedding.

We had the most pleasant evening I could recollect in a long time. And then everything cruelly changed.

Mama had retired to her bedchamber, Father to his library. I was in my bedroom reading when the marshals came. There was a dreadful pounding on the door, and those servants who went to respond to it tried to resist the men who stood there.

Father came out of his library, Mary and Thomas out of the company room, I down from my bedroom. The light from the marshals' lantern spilled into our hallway. Father bade them enter and to read their warrant.

Mama sent down word that she would not resist arrest, but neither would she come down this night. Mary burst into tears and Thomas looked grim. I paled. My hands were like ice, and I was shaking. The marshals went up the stairway with Father and read Mama the warrant while she sat up in bed listening.

Then she sent them from the room, called for Mary and me, and hugged and kissed us, then bade us go to bed. "I am prepared," she said. "I have been expecting this since the day I sat with Sarah Cloyce in Meeting. Don't cry, Susanna. You must be strong now. This is a misunderstanding. We will clear up the matter. The magistrates are not demented. Go now, both of you; I must talk with your father."

I did not sleep that night. I tossed and turned in torment and guilt. I could not understand this. Ann Putnam had promised they would not touch anyone in my family. What had happened?

Oh, I was so angry! I would go in the morning, I decided, and tell the magistrates what I knew!

No, tomorrow I would go to Ann Putnam herself. I would confront her and make the girls take back their charge against my mother. I must!

I could barely wait for morning. I got out of bed to see a full moon and shreds of clouds still moving against a clear sky. I remembered my ship. Had that peace becalmed me only a few hours earlier? Tonight my family had been so happy together. Had the fates given us this one last night together, then, before we were to be destroyed?

Oh, I must stop thinking such! Looking out the windows, I could see the shapes of the guards walking around our house. I ran back to bed and hid under the covers. Toward morning I fell asleep. Mary woke me and bade me come down and have breakfast with the family.