He went down to the dining room and kissed his wife on the forehead. She raised her face and smiled, but only briefly. She invited no further show of affection, and given her sickly appearance—eyes sunk in gray pits, lips as white as flour—it would have been unseemly of him to offer more.
“Good morning, my darling,” she said. “Rosetta prepares a fine gruel.”
“Save his share for me,” said Isaac from the other end of the table. “He fasts.”
“For the usual fulfillment?” She cast her eyes to her husband.
“He fasts for the soul of Miss Margaret Rule, that the devil may leave her.” Isaac spooned a mouthful of porridge. “Possessed she is, or so they tell us.”
“Most times,” said Mary, “John fasts that we may give you a grandchild. A son for us, a grandson for you, another Wedge for the college.”
Isaac lowered his spoon and said, “Nothing would make an old man happier, dear, save knowledge that my son walks through life with you as a companion.”
For all their disputations, thought John, his father knew the right words at the right moment. The smile that brightened Mary’s face was proof enough.
“You know,” she said, “John even keeps his old commonplace book in his study. He would give it to his son, on the day that the boy enter Harvard.”
And once more the eyes of father and son met in memory of that distant day when Isaac had first brought John from the Sudbury marshes to Cambridge.
John stepped out of the room and a moment later returned with a book. “Do you recognize this?”
Isaac took it as though it were a talisman of lost happiness. He flipped through the pages of John’s tight-writ, upright, adolescent script. He read Latin quotations, passages from the Bible, and bits of conversation, including this, dated March 19, 1677:
Cotton Mather: I h-h-h-have a new prescription to over- c-c-c-come the stammer.
Me: By what science comes this knowledge?
Cotton: The advice of that g-g-g-good old schoolmaster Mr. Corlet. He suggests I apply a certain d-d-d-dilated deliberation in speaking, as though I were a singer. In singing, there is no one who stammers, so by prolonging your pronunciation you will get a habit of speaking without hesitation.
Me: I shall pray on it for you.
And interspersed with such things were passages of blank verse, including one that Isaac found familiar, dated April 30, 1676, just two weeks after the Sudbury attack:
A man be but a speck of dust, begot
By dust that breathed before, but dust that lives
Again, when dust itself hath turned to dust.
Beneath it was a parenthetical comment about the joys of love’s labors.
John said, “Do you remember those days, Father?”
“I remember,” said Isaac. “It please me that you remember, too, and share such memories, for they were days that showed love’s labors won.”
And John went on, as if he had not heard that meaning. “Today, we labor for the love of Christ, against Satan and his minions, whether they be unseen spirits or living deceivers who distract us with their work and words.”
They heard Margaret Rule before they saw her. She was screaming.
She and her mother lived in a little house within the shadow of the Mathers’ church, a quarter mile from the Wedge home on Hanover Street. A large crowd were peering in the doors and through the windows, for here was a grand spectacle.
“Rum!” she was screaming. “The devil bids me drink rum!”
“Aye,” said a sailor at one of the windows. “The devil will do that.”
“Make way,” said John. And the crowd parted for the ex-judge and his father.
The sailor muttered, “Cotton Mather and John Wedge together. No wonder the devil wants her to have a dram. She’ll need her strength.”
“Aye,” said another sailor. “I’ll take one meself.”
“Rum!” cried Margaret Rule again.
John and Isaac pushed through a doorway into the bedroom, where a dozen men and women crowded around the bed in thick, stifling heat.
And there she lay, a beautiful girl in a jumble of bedclothes and wild black hair.
Sitting on the edge of the bed was Cotton Mather. “Peace, dear girl.”
“Rum!” she cried, and then she began to toss her head from side to side. “Rum . . . No . . . no . . . no . . . rum . . . rum . . .”
“Dear girl,” said Mather gently, “you must eat.”
“But the devil . . . he forces me”—her jaw dropped and she looked about the room, then she tried to talk with her mouth seemingly locked open—“he pours brimstone down my throat. Burning brimstone! Burning!”
“I smell it,” said a goodwife standing close to Isaac.
And Isaac thought, for a moment, that he smelled it, too, so convincing was this girl in her possession.
“Calm yourself,” said Mather, reaching out to touch the girl’s forehead.
And she closed her mouth.
“That’s better.” Mather was not wearing his wig or black hat, but rather a brown suit, which softened his presence considerably.
The girl smiled now and nuzzled his outstretched hand like a cat.
“See the bright angel,” said Mather. “See him come to you and chase the dark man toward perdition.”
“I . . . I . . .” The girl’s eyes cast about the room until they fell upon John Wedge. “Who is here? Be this the white angel?”
“This is John Wedge,” said Mather, “whom wicked spirits do fear.”
She smiled at him. “He is most welcome, then, and most handsome . . . most . . .” Suddenly, her eyes opened wide and she gave out with a horrified shriek.
“What?” cried Mather. “What happens?”
“The devil lifts me!” she cried.
A gasp went through the room as she seemed to rise, first by her shoulders, then by her legs and feet, so that her shift fell back, revealing long, naked legs, almost to her crotch. “The devil lifts me. Help me!”
And a voice whispered in Isaac’s ear, “She rises, all right, all but her arse.” It was Robert Calef, the Boston merchant who was still criticizing the Mathers at every turn. “That glorious white arse that every man in the room would love to touch.”
Isaac brought a finger to his lips.
But Calef kept on. “Her arse be the fulcrum for her body. She folds herself in the middle, so we get to see her parts and she gets to blame the devil for showin’ them.”
“’Tis a fine arse,” whispered Isaac.
“’Tis the reason the room be so full.”
Mather shot a glance in their direction, then picked up the sheet and tried to cover the girl’s legs. “We must pray! Pray!”
“No!” The girl thrust her hands toward the ceiling, so her shift fell from her breasts. “I burn to hear the word
prayer.
I seethe to hear prayers. So utter no p-p-pr—” And she shrieked, then reached to John Wedge. “Please, master, lay on thy hands.”
John looked at Mather, who nodded. “Lay on thy hands. It has worked before.”
“Go on,” said someone from the back of the room. “Give ’er a good feel.”
“Quiet yourself,” growled Mather.
John gently took one of the girl’s legs.
She cried, “No, good sir. Not the legs. The breasts, for they be near the heart.”
“Yes,” said Mather. “The evil one cannot stand her to be touched near the heart. Like . . . like this.” Mather pushed up the woman’s shift, raised his chin, as if to say he was above reproach in what he was about to do, then firmly pressed his hand to her breast.
Immediately, her left side—stiffened arm and leg—sank back to the bed.
A cry of surprise and awe went through the room, as if it were a fine magic trick.
But her right side remained rigid, arm and leg both pointing toward the beams above her, and she cast her eyes again at John.
Cotton Mather said to John, “Quick. The evil in her weakens. Lay on thy hands.”
Calef whispered in Isaac’s ear, “She seduces your son. She relishes her play.”
John put his hand on her right breast, and her arm and leg dropped to the bed.
“Lord be praised,” said one of the goodwives.
“Lord be deceived,” muttered Calef.
Isaac made no response. He was watching his son, who stood rigid at the side of the bed, his arm stretched out, his hand pressed on her breast.
“I feel the demons go,” said the girl. “I feel the goodness of men.”
“Look!” cried Mather. “Look there!”
“What?” answered John, eyes widening.
“Movement, under the pillow!” Mather stood up, and immediately, Margaret’s left arm and leg shot toward the ceiling.
“Take my place, John, whilst I”—Mather’s voice grew low—“take on the imp.”
John did as he was told. He kept his left hand on her right breast and slipped his right hand onto the other, which relaxed the arm and leg. He told himself that he was acting above reproach. But her breasts were full and round and . . . he thanked God that there were so many witnesses.
Suddenly, Mather threw himself across the girl, in a flurry of flying legs, shoe buckles, and white stockings.
“What is it?” she cried from beneath him.
“An imp!” Mather drove his hands into the bedclothes. “I feel him.”
“Where?” shouted John.
“Here! No, here! No . . .” Mather thrust his hands about while his muffled voice seemed to vibrate in the bedding. “Yes . . . I have him. Yes . . . no . . . no . . .” He pushed himself off of her, breathing heavy with excitement, and said, “I held it but a moment. A spirit, and yet it had substance. A living creature. It so startled me that I released my grip.”
“What did it feel like?” asked John.
“A . . . a rat,” said Mather. “For all the world, the imp of Satan felt like a rat.”
“Then perhaps,” said Robert Calef, “it was a rat.”
Mather turned and glared at him. “No coffeehouse witling will turn us from our holy purpose. We are here to do the Lord’s work, sir.”
“But the imp?” said Calef. “If it felt like a rat, perhaps it was a rat.”
“It was an imp of Satan!” He turned back to Margaret, who seemed to have settled. “And we are here to save this girl from such evil.”
“You have, sir,” she said groggily, and she arched her back against John’s hands. “You and John Wedge . . . at least for today.” And then she began to giggle.
“I now order you to leave,” said Mather, “for it is her laughing time.”
“That girl be taken with some female hysteria,” said Isaac the next morning.
“Cotton Mather saw an imp,” answered John.
“He saw a
rat.
” Isaac swung an old leg over the saddle. “And I smell one.”
“I’ll see you in a month, Father.”
“Aye,” said Isaac. “But wait six weeks to see that girl again. Let her monthlies come and go at least once, then see if she improve.”
John Wedge did not take his father’s advice. He was back at Margaret Rule’s house with the Mathers the very next day. He laid on hands, he prayed, and he soothed a young girl, all of which, he told the Mathers, felt far better than hanging her.
And he went to visit her another day when neither of the Mathers was in attendance, though the room was filled with gossiping townsfolk who had made this house a regular stop on their daily rounds.
At the sight of him, the girl cried out, “The bright angel!” Then she extended her hand and bade him sit on the edge of the bed, in the place usually occupied by Cotton Mather. As he did, her thigh pressed against his and her face broke into a smile, revealing fine, unbroken teeth.
And John had a strange thought: good teeth were the sure sign of good health.
Suddenly, the girl shrieked, and John leapt to his feet, thinking he had sat on her, or perhaps it was an imp and not her thigh pressing against him.
“The women!” she shrieked. “The women must leave!”
“Why?” asked a toothless old goodwife by the window.
“Because the dark angel is above your heads.”
The goodwife ducked, as though a bird had just swept over her.
“All women leave!” Then Margaret opened her mouth and emitted an ear-piercing shriek that drove all the women and most of the men from the room.
But Robert Calef remained, at least a few moments more. He came every day to observe, comment, and scrawl notes in a small book. He stopped in the doorway and waited until Margaret had tired of shrieking, then said to John, “Be careful of the imps. They may be invisible, but they leave black droppings in the corners.”
“Go and put that in your foul book,” said Margaret with a sudden, cold calm.
“I believe that I will,” said Calef. “And someday, I will publish your story.”
Once more, Margaret became the possessed woman-child, all but levitating from the bed and shrieking for John to lay on his hands.
And so he did, in the name of the Lord, directly onto her barely covered breasts.
She arched herself into him and cried out in relief, “Ahh . . . the devil flees.”
“Keep the white angel before you,” he shouted.
“I cannot see him. Help me to see him.” And with that, she placed her hands on his and directed them down, under the bedclothes, toward her loins.
He felt himself sinking toward her temptation. He yearned to touch her, to knead her, to caress the naked flesh under her bedclothes. But then the old sailor poked his head in the window and said, “Squeeze her good, Judge. Devil’s in deep. Got to squeeze him out like the core of a boil.” This brought John up straight.
“Please, good master,” cried Margaret. “Massage the devil away.”
Though it was meant to be a spiritual act, John Wedge was responding physically. He could not let them see his breeches bulging, not the old sailor nor Robert Calef nor the goodwives whose faces were reappearing in the window and doorway. So he left off massaging and hurried from the room, while Margaret Rule cried out for him to come back and free her from her torment.
That night, John Wedge was awakened by a torment of his own, a devil in the form of a dream, a naked spirit, a female spirit, with black hair and a dazzling smile, a spirit enticing him to embrace her, to kiss her, to press his hands against her breasts.
And when he did these things in his dream, the spirit moaned and moved against him, and the dream was so alive that even in his sleep, he could feel himself rising.