Acceptable Risk (22 page)

When they had finished with the interior, they stepped outside and began a walk around the building. Viewing the structure from the exterior, Kim told them that she wanted the new windows in the lean-to to match the small, diamond-paned windows of the main part of the house.

“They’ll have to be custom,” George said. “They’ll be considerably more expensive.”

“I want them,” Kim said without hesitation.

She also told them she wanted the roof slate repaired, not replaced with a modern material, as the contractor had suggested. Mark agreed it would look far better. Kim even wanted the asphalt shingles removed from the shed and replaced with slate.

Rounding the building, they came to the utility trench. Kim glanced into its depths, where now ran a waste pipe, a water pipe, an electrical service, a phone line, and a TV cable. She was relieved to see the corner of the coffin still protruding from the wall.

“What about this ditch?” she asked.

“It’ll be filled tomorrow,” George said.

Kim felt an unwelcome chill descend her spine as she reluctantly imagined the terrible dilemma she would have faced had she not made the call to George that morning.

“Will all this be done by September first?” Kim asked, forcing her mind away from such disturbing thoughts.

Mark deferred to George.

“Barring any unforeseen problems we should be fine,” George said. “I’ll order the new casement windows tomorrow. If they’re not here in time we can always hang a temporary window.”

After the contractor and the architect had climbed into their respective vehicles and driven out of sight, Kim went back into the house to find a hammer. With it in hand, she opened the trunk of her car and lifted out the cardboard box.

As she followed the trench to where she could climb into it, Kim was quite astonished with her degree of nervousness. She felt like a thief in the night, and she kept stopping to listen for any approaching cars.

Once she was in the trench and had walked back to where the coffin was, a sense of claustrophobia made the ordeal even worse. The walls seemed to tower above her and from her vantage point seemed to curve out over her head, adding to her fear they might cave in at any moment.

With a tremulous hand, Kim set to work on the end of the coffin. Inserting the hammer’s claws, she pried it back. Then she turned to face the box.

Now that the unpleasant task was at hand, Kim revived the debate as to what she should do in relation to the box. But she didn’t debate long: hastily she untied the string. As much as she hated the idea of touching the head, she had to make an effort to restore the grave to a semblance of its original state.

Lifting the cardboard flaps, Kim reluctantly looked inside. The head was facing up, balanced on a mat of dried hair. Elizabeth was staring back at Kim with her dried, sunken eyeballs partially exposed. For an uncomfortable moment, Kim tried vainly to reconcile the gruesome face with the pleasing portrait that she was having restored, relined, and reframed. The images were such stark opposites that it seemed inconceivable they were the same person.

Holding her breath, Kim reached in and lifted the head. Touching it gave her renewed shivers, as if she were touching death itself. Kim also found herself wondering anew about what had really happened three hundred years previously. What could Elizabeth have done to bring on such a cruel fate?

Turning around carefully to avoid tripping over any of the pipes and cables, Kim extended the head into the coffin. Gingerly she set it down. She could feel her hands touch fabric and other firmer objects, but she didn’t try to look in to see what they were. Hastily she bent the end of the coffin back to its original position and hammered it home.

Picking up the empty box and string, Kim hurried back up the trench. She didn’t begin to relax until she’d put the trash back in her trunk. Finally she took a deep breath. At least it was over.

Walking back to the trench, she looked down at the end of the coffin just to make sure she’d not left some telltale evidence behind. She could see her footprints, but she didn’t think that was a problem.

With her hands on her hips, Kim’s eyes left the coffin and looked up at the quiet, cozy cottage. She tried to imagine what life had been like back in those dark days of the witchcraft scare, when poor Elizabeth was unknowingly ingesting the poisonous, mind-altering grain. With all the books Kim had been reading on the witchcraft ordeal, she’d learned quite a lot. For the most part the young women who presumably had been poisoned with the same contaminant as Elizabeth were the “afflicted,” and they were the ones who “called out against” the witches.

Kim looked back at the coffin. She was confused. The young afflicted women had not been thought of as witches themselves, as Elizabeth had been. The exception had been Mary Warren, who had been both one of the afflicted and one of the accused, yet she’d been released and not executed. What made Elizabeth different? Why wasn’t she just one of the afflicted? Could it have been that she was afflicted but refused to accuse anyone of afflicting her? Or could she have been practicing the occult, as her father had intimated?

Kim sighed and shook her head. She didn’t have any answers. It all seemed to come back to the mysterious conclusive evidence and what it could have been. Kim’s gaze wandered to the lonely castle, and in her mind’s eye she saw the innumerable file cabinets, trunks, and boxes.

She glanced down at her watch. There were still several hours of daylight. Impulsively, she walked over to her car, climbed in, and drove up to the castle. With the mystery of Elizabeth so prominent in her mind, she thought she’d spend a little more time on the daunting task of looking through the papers.

Kim pushed through the front door of the castle and whistled to keep herself company. At the base of the grand staircase she hesitated. The attic was certainly more agreeable than the wine cellar, but her last visit to the attic had been singularly unsuccessful. She’d found nothing from the seventeenth century despite almost five hours of effort.

Reversing her direction, Kim walked into the dining room and opened the heavy oak door of the wine cellar. She flipped on the sconces and descended the granite steps. Walking along the central corridor, she peered into successive individual cells. Recognizing that there was no order to the material, she thought it important that she develop some rational plan. Vaguely she thought that she would start in the very farthest cell and begin to organize the papers according to subject matter and age.

Passing one particular cell, Kim did a double take. Returning to it, she gazed in at the furniture. There was the usual complement of file cabinets, bureaus, trunks, and boxes. But there was also something different. On top of one of the bureaus was a wooden box that looked familiar to Kim. It closely resembled the Bible box which the Witch House tour guide had described as an invariable part of a Puritan home.

Stepping over to the bureau, Kim ran her fingers along the top of the box, leaving parallel trails in the dust. The wood was unfinished yet perfectly smooth. There was no doubt the box was old. Placing her hands at either end, Kim opened the hinged lid.

Inside, appropriately enough, was a worn Bible bound in thick leather. Lifting the Bible out, Kim noticed that beneath it were some envelopes and papers. She carried the Bible out to the hall where the light was better. Folding back the cover and flyleaf, she looked at the date. It was printed in London in 1635. She thumbed through the text in hopes that some sheets of paper might have been stuck in the pages, but there was nothing.

Kim was about to return to the Bible box when the back cover of the Bible fell open in her hands. Written on the endpaper was: Ronald Stewart his book 1663. The handwriting resembled the graceful cursive script Kim recognized to be Ronald’s. She guessed he’d written in the Bible as a boy.

Turning the back flyleaf, Kim found a series of blank pages with the word Memorandum printed at the top. On the first memorandum page following the Bible text she found more of Ronald’s handwriting. Here he had recorded each of the marriages, births, and deaths of his family. With her index finger keeping her oriented on the page, Kim read off each of the dates until she came to the date of Ronald’s marriage to Rebecca. It had been Saturday, October 1, 1692.

Kim was appalled. That meant that Ronald had married Elizabeth’s sister just ten weeks after Elizabeth’s death! That seemed much too quick to Kim, and once again she found herself questioning Ronald’s behavior. She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d had something to do with Elizabeth’s execution. With such haste to remarry it was difficult for Kim to imagine that Ronald and Rebecca hadn’t been having an affair.

Encouraged by her discovery, Kim returned to the Bible box and lifted out the envelopes and papers. Eagerly she opened the envelopes, hoping for personal correspondence, but each was a disappointment. All the enclosed material was business-related and from a period from 1810 to 1837.

Kim turned to the papers. She went through them sheet by sheet, and although they were older, they were not any more interesting until she came to one that was folded in thirds. Unfolding the multipage document, which had traces of a wax seal, Kim found a deed to a huge tract of land called Northfields Property.

Turning to the second page of the deed, Kim found a map. It was not difficult for her to recognize the area. The tract included the current Stewart compound as well as the land presently occupied by the Kernwood Country Club and the Greenlawn Cemetery. It also crossed the Danvers River, which was labeled the Wooleston River, to include property in Beverly. To the northwest it ran into present-day Peabody and Danvers, which in the deed was called Salem Village.

Turning the page, Kim found the most interesting part of the deed. The buyer’s signature was Elizabeth Flanagan Stewart. The date was February 3, 1692.

Kim pondered the fact that Elizabeth was the buyer and not Ronald. It seemed strange although she did recall the premarital document she’d seen in the Essex County Courthouse giving Elizabeth the right to enter into contracts in her own name. But why was Elizabeth the buyer, especially since it was such a huge tract and must have cost a fortune?

Attached to the back of the deed was a final sheet of paper which was smaller in size and written by a different hand. Kim recognized the signature. It was Magistrate Jonathan Corwin, the original occupant of the Witch House.

Holding the document up to the light since it was difficult to read, Kim learned that it was a ruling by Magistrate Corwin denying a petition by Thomas Putnam, who wanted the Northfields purchase contract declared null and void because of the illegality of Elizabeth’s signature.

To conclude the ruling, Magistrate Corwin wrote: “The legality of the signature of the aforesaid contract stands on the contract bound by Ronald Stewart and Elizabeth Flanagan dated 11th February 1681.”

“My goodness,” Kim murmured. It was as if she were peeking through a window on the late seventeenth century. From her general reading she knew that name Thomas Putnam. He was one of the principal characters in the factional strife that had engulfed Salem Village prior to the witchcraft frenzy and that many historians felt had been the hidden social cause of the affair. It had been Thomas Putnam’s afflicted wife and daughter who’d made many of the witchcraft accusations. Obviously Thomas Putnam had not been aware of the premarital contract between Ronald and Elizabeth when he filed his petition.

Kim slowly folded the deed and the ruling. She had learned something that might be important for her understanding of what happened to Elizabeth. Obviously Thomas Putnam had been upset about Elizabeth’s purchase of the land, and considering his role in the witchcraft saga, his enmity had to have been significant. It could very well have catapulted Elizabeth into the middle of the tragedy.

For a few moments Kim pondered the possibility that the evidence used against Elizabeth in her trial had something to do with Thomas Putnam and the purchase of the Northfields tract. After all, such a purchase by a woman would have been a disturbing act in Puritan times considering the accepted role of women. Perhaps the evidence had been something that was considered compelling proof Elizabeth was a virago and therefore unnatural. But try as she might, Kim couldn’t think of anything.

Kim placed the deed and the attached ruling on top of the Bible, and examined the rest of the papers from the Bible box. To her delight she found one more seventeenth-century document, but when she read it she was less excited. It was a contract between Ronald Stewart and Olaf Sagerholm of Göteborg, Sweden. The contract directed Olaf to build a ship of a new and swift frigate design. The ship was specified to be 128 feet in length, 34 feet 6 inches in beam, and 19 feet 3 inches in draft when fully loaded with 276 last. The date was 12 December 1691.

Kim put the Bible and the two seventeenth-century documents back in the Bible box and carried the box to a console table at the base of the steps leading up to the dining room. She planned to use the box as a repository for any papers she found that related to Elizabeth or Ronald. To that end she went into the cell where she’d found the letter from James Flanagan and brought the letter back to put it with the other materials.

With that accomplished, Kim returned to the room where she’d found the Bible box and began a search through the bureau on which the Bible box sat. After several hours of diligent work, she straightened up and stretched. She’d found nothing interesting. A quick glance at her watch told her it was nearing eight and time for her to head back to Boston.

Slowly climbing the stairs, she realized how exhausted she was. It had been a busy day at work, and she found searching through the papers tiring even if it wasn’t physically demanding.

The drive back to Boston was far easier than the drive out to Salem. There was little traffic until she entered Boston proper. Getting on Storrow Drive for what normally was only a short stretch, Kim changed her mind and drove on to the Fenway exit. She had the sudden idea to pay a visit to Edward in his lab rather than phone him. Since the task of replacing Elizabeth’s head had been so complication-free, she felt guilty she’d been so upset anticipating it.