Susannah Morrow (34 page)

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 determined 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.

“L
UCAS, YOU MUST GO
,” S
USANNAH 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 come 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.

“She will,” Griggs said. “They all do. Bring her to Ingersoll’s tomorrow during the examinations. See if she is at all affected
by the other girls.”

“How could she not be?” Susannah asked. “I should think ’twould be better to keep her away from them. They cannot help but
feed off each other.”

Griggs said sharply, “If there are witches in the village, ’tis in our best interest to find them. There are others, Tituba
said. We must use all our abilities to discover who they are.”

“You surprise me, Doctor. I would have thought your first interest would be healing.”

There was anger in his voice when he said, “Do not forget, my own niece is involved in this. I want only the best for her.”

“Then perhaps you should send her to town, or to Boston.”

“You would let witches roam freely? You would give the Devil such power?”

“He only has what power you give him,” Susannah told him. “I would think young girls are hardly—”

“Enough,” I said, angry that she would dare to dispute these things that she could not possibly understand. “You do neither
us nor Charity any good, madam. Quiet yourself.”

I did not care when she flinched. I wanted to punish her as I punished myself. I looked back at the doctor. “We’ll bring her
tomorrow. Godspeed, William.”

Griggs looked at Susannah and then back to me, nodding. “Good night,” he said as he went out, and the night swallowed him.
The room felt still and heavy, as if there had never been a disturbance here, as if Susannah and I had held these postures
for an eternity.

“I think it cannot be good to take Charity to Ingersoll’s,” Susannah said. “You planned to take her to town tomorrow. Tell
me you will do that.”

That she could go on as if nothing happened sickened me. I could not believe she would still think of sending Charity out
now. I shook my head. “No.”

“Lucas, you cannot mean to—”

“This is beyond me now,” I said. “I cannot help her, and you have proven to be no use to her at all.”