Susannah Morrow (29 page)

When she was gone, my troubles came back with a suffocating weight, and I wanted her calm certainty and her belief I wanted
her back with a desperation that frightened me.

I resolved to ride to town the next morning to find a place for Charity, but ’twas snowing so hard, such a distance was impossible.
I did not like the delay, but it could not be helped. I took comfort in the fact that no one else would be traveling, either.
There would be little chance for the illness in the parsonage to spread.

But later that morning, as I chopped wood in the barn, a snow-covered Francis Nurse came to see me. He was red-nosed, haggard,
and worn. “What is it, Francis?” I asked sharply. “Is Rebecca…?”

“Still not herself, I fear,” he said. “But no, that is not why I came.”

“The court? Has there been a decision?”

“Not that, either.” Bluntly he said, “Griggs went to look at Parris’s girls.”

I felt ill. “And?”

“He says ’tis bewitchment.”

The word had dimension and weight; ’twas a word I’d feared, a word I had not allowed myself to even think.

“Is he certain?”

“Aye,” Francis said. The wind picked up, fluttering the thinning gray hair that his hat did not cover. “He’s not told anyone
else, Lucas, but the news will soon be out. These things have a way of spreading…’Tis as if the wind itself has a tongue.”

“And Parris…What does he say?”

“He did not seem surprised.”

“I doubt anyone will be,” I said. “Is this not what we all suspected?”

Francis nodded. “Aye. Parris spoke of turning to others for prayer and advice. Perhaps John Hale or Noyes. My guess is he’ll
do that right away.”

John Hale and Nicholas Noyes were neighboring ministers, of Beverly and Salem Town respectively. They were both highly respected
men, and I knew Noyes well, and admired him—he was pastor of my church in town.

“Of course he will. It cannot be good for him to be seen as a minister who harbors Satan in his house.”

Francis looked at me sharply. “This cannot be good for any of us. If the Devil is here, Parris will do what he can to fight
him. His position depends on it. He cannot be seen as the cause of this—do you take my meaning? He will not shoulder the blame,
and Tom Putnam will support him.”

I understood too well. Parris had too much at stake; his position was already too tenuous. To be seen as housing the Devil
would turn some villagers against him. His only choice was to turn the blame to someone else.

“One of us should be at that prayer meeting,” I said.

“One of us will not be enough,” Francis told me. “If this grows…”

“Will Parris try to keep us from it?”

Francis shook his head. “He must let us come. ’Tis a terrifying thing; others will want reassurance.”

“Then who should go?”

“Not Putnam. His presence will only inflame his brother. And Porter…no. There is too much contention already between their
families.”

I regarded him slowly, with dread. “That leaves only you and me, and Daniel.”

“Daniel is a town selectman; ’tis best if he stays clear of this. Thomas and I have had our disagreements, but there are no
lingering animosities. And you: You have had no disputes with Parris beyond the committee ones, and…your own daughter has
been seen at the parsonage. She’s been seen with those other girls—you have an interest in the proceedings.”

Your own daughter.

I answered steadily, “Very well. The two of us, then. When shall the prayer meeting be?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ll talk to Parris.” Then Francis sighed. “I had hoped…Ah, well, ’tis one of God’s trials. I had thought
myself too old for this.”

“Let us hope it does not get worse.”

“Aye,” he said. “Aye. And…You will be careful, Lucas?”

“Is it possible, Francis? Could it be that Satan has come to the village?”

Francis’s look was long. “What else could it be?”

’T
WAS NEARLY A WEEK BEFORE THE SNOW STOPPED, CHANGING
overnight to rain, a new thaw that had trees cracking and icicles breaking from the eaves to plunge into softening snow.
The cold was of a different kind now, a dampness that eased into the bones.

Now that the roads became passable again, neighbors would meet, women would gossip, and the news of Griggs’s pronouncement
of bewitchment would be embellished beyond recognition.

Thus it was more urgent than ever that I get Charity from the village. But the morning I planned to go, I came into the hall
only to see Charity already at the window—her usual post these last days.

I went behind her, trying to find what absorbed her attention. I saw bare trees and snow-covered ground, a crow, the steady
drips from icicles hanging before the window. “What is it you see?”

She jumped as if she hadn’t known I was there. Her face went white. “’Tis gone,” she said, rubbing viciously at a new chilblain
on her jaw.

I reached out and stopped her hand. “I told you to get some salve for that.”

“I would not take anything she gave me,” she said.

“I have told you that I will not—”

Her gaze leaped beyond me. I glanced over my shoulder to see Susannah come into the room. Charity twisted from my grasp, and
then she leaned close. “Do not let her fool you, Father. Please. The Devil wears many pleasing faces. You know this, do you
not? You know this?”

“Of course I know it.” I reached for her hand again. She looked startled at my touch, and then afraid. She snatched her hand
back and ran from me.

“Charity!” I called, but she hurried up the stairs, slamming her bedroom door.

Susannah said in a soft voice, “You must get her from this place soon.”

I sat heavily on the bench. “The snow has let up. I’m going today to make arrangements.”

“She barely eats. ’Tis as if she thinks I will poison her.”

“She doesn’t trust you, though I have tried hard enough to reassure her.”

Susannah said nothing. She busied herself at the fire, but I felt her tension. I saw her unspoken words in the rigidity of
her movements.

“What is it?” I asked her. “Have I offended you?”

“’Tis nothing—”

“Tell me.”

She paused, and hung a kettle onto the crane before she turned to face me. “How well do you really know your child?”

“Well enough.”

“Lucas…Do you know that she hangs on your every word? That you wound her nearly every day with your uninterest and inattention?
Do you know that she is frightened nearly to illness of your sermons and your God-fearing prayers, but she listens because
’tis you who speaks?”

“I am not inattentive—”

“Do you know,” she went on, stepping across the room toward me, “that she knows enough of life to understand what is between
you and me? She senses you may have reasons to lie to her when you speak of me. Perhaps you have not said to her that I mean
you ill, but she cannot help but see that you think it. The way you avoid me, the anger in your voice when you speak to me—”

“Enough,” I said. “You have said enough.”

“I have not said nearly enough.” Color defined the angles of her cheeks. “Tell me, Lucas, because I do not know what to believe.…Tell
me: Have you castigated yourself so much for the desire between us that you’ve convinced yourself I’m the villain Charity
believes me to be?”

The words, the words…I did not want to hear them. “We…must not…discuss this. It cannot…be.”

“I did not wish it so,” she said. “But you’re wrong to think we must not discuss it. We have no choice but to do so.”

I sank my head into my hands. She said nothing for a moment, then bent close to me. “Shall we admit what we want of each other,
Lucas? Or deny it still?”

I looked at her. “I will deny it to my last breath,” I said violently. My vehement reaction seemed to surprise her.

“We cannot live with each other this way.”

The world spun out of my reach, and I hated her for taking my well-ordered life from me. I jerked to my feet, and the bench
crashed to the ground. “What would you have me do?” I asked angrily. “Shall I bed you and damn us both? Is that what you want?”

She did not flinch. “Aye. Perhaps then, this thing would die. But you keep it close; how can it help but grow?”

“Do…not…torment me.”

“You torment yourself,” she said bitterly. “And me, because you will do nothing.”

She left me. She went to the cellar door and disappeared down the stairs. It thudded shut behind her.

There was a thought—an instinct—that I must leave here. I had plans. Salem Town. I started to the door. I did not mean to
go to her. I wanted with all my soul to be away. And yet, as I passed the cellar door, I opened it. I stepped onto the stair;
I let the door close behind me. She had taken the betty lamp; the stairs were in darkness. I saw the faint glow below, the
disjointed bits of shadow. I took those stairs as one condemned, with slow and dreading steps and the knowledge that this
was the end. After this, my soul would belong to Hell, and yet the Devil had me chained already. I could not stop.

When I reached the bottom, she looked up as if she were surprised. She had set the lamp on a barrel of salted pork. She had
a pitcher in her hand, and she was bending to the barrel of small beer, but when she saw me, she straightened.

I wanted her to say something that would take this terrible responsibility from me. To beckon me on, or hold out her arms,
or speak encouragement. I wanted to be able to say:
I could have turned away had she not done this, or said this. She was a temptress, a siren who bewitched me so I was not myself.
But she merely stood there as I came closer. She did not back away, or try to move past me. She did not give as I came so
close to her that I felt the press of her skirts against my thighs. When I spread my hands over her hips and closed my fingers
over her skirts and jerked her close, she only lifted her face to me.

I backed her against the barrel. I plunged my fingers into her hair, twisting until I saw her eyes water from the little pain,
and then I took her mouth the way I had dreamed of taking her.

’Twas not a kiss…but more an assault, openmouthed, breathing her in, devouring her. I had never kissed Judith this way, nor
in truth any woman, and yet I did not temper it. She opened her mouth to mine, and I tasted her tongue and the cider she’d
drunk, the wintergreen she’d chewed, little bits of it still clinging to her tongue.

I heard the pitcher fall to the ground. I felt it rock into my heel. I kicked it away and pressed her back still again, jamming
her hard into the barrel, easing away only far enough to reach the lacings of her bodice, which I yanked and tore until they
gave, until it fell open beneath my hands. I wrenched the string of her chemise so it fell open and her breasts were freed.
I pressed my palms to them, but the touch was not enough—I was like a demon even to myself. I balled her skirts in my hands,
drawing them up and up, petticoats, chemise, shoving them around her waist, gathering the pocket beneath her skirt with them
so it turned upside down, and keys and thimbles and coins clattered to the floor. Her thighs were bare and warm. I lifted
her, and she put her hands around my neck and helped me, crying out as her hip cracked against the keg, as the lid rocked.
Then she was sitting on it, her legs spread, curved around my own hips, and I loosed my breeches and thrust inside her with
such force that she cried out, though ’twas not a cry of pain, and I swallowed the sound. I braced my hands on the edges of
the barrel and rocked her until the lid became unsettled and I felt the beer spilling over my fingers; I smelled the yeast
and malt of it, filling the air along with her scent: lemons and musk and sex. She gripped her ankles to the small of my back
and met my every thrust, and we battered each other in pleasure-pain and denial, in recognition.

I came in a surrender of my soul—a pleasure so intense ’twas as much a torment, and when she cried out, ’twas against my lips—a
rush of breath, a sudden lax, and we were throbbing together. I heard our breaths, mingled, shallow. I felt the beating of
her heart against my chest.

I closed my eyes, resting my cheek against her hair. I could nor catch my breath, nor admit myself to the world again. ’Twas
only when I heard the steady
drip drip
of small beer on the floor that I became aware. My hands were wet, the scent of beer heady, and I was afraid of myself.

“Forgive me,” I whispered against her jaw, not knowing for whom I said the words—myself or her, or…God. “Forgive me.”

“You take too much responsibility, Lucas,” she said, stroking the hair from my face.

“Who else shall rake it?”

“Me, for one,” she said. “Or…fate. Or God. I cannot help but think…I would never have chosen this for myself. My sister’s
husband—”

“Your brother.”

“No.” She shook her head against mine. “No, I will not call you that any longer. You are not my brother. I will not accept
that sin too.”

“It does not matter what you accept. The truth is there. A sin cannot be something else simply because you wish it so.”