Heartfire: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume V (25 page)

“But you see, Miss Purity, such witchy knacks are given to people only because they serve the devil.”

“What I’m saying is I never saw him worship the devil, nor speak of the devil, nor show a sign of wishing to serve him.”

“Except for his knack, which of course
does
serve the devil.”

“I never actually saw the knack, either, with my own eyes,” said Purity. “I just heard tales of it from the boy who traveled with him.”

“Name the boy,” said Quill, his pen poised.

“Arthur Stuart.”

Quill looked up at her, not writing.

“It
is
a joke, sir, to name him so, but the joke was made years ago by those who named him, I do not jest with you now.”

He wrote the name.

“He’s a half-Black boy,” she began, “and—”

“Singed in the fires of hell,” said Quill.

“No, I think he’s merely the son of a White slave owner who forced himself on a Black slave girl, or that’s the implication of the story I was told.”

Quill smiled. “But why do you resist me?” he said. “You say he’s half-Black. I say this shows he was singed by the fires of hell. And you say, no, not at all—and then proceed to tell me he is the product of a rape of a Black woman by a White man. How could one better describe such a dreadful conception than by saying the child was singed in the fires of hell? You see?”

Purity nodded. “I thought you were speaking literally.”

“I am,” said Quill.

“I mean, that you literally meant that the boy had been to hell and burned there a little.”

“So I say,” Quill said, smiling. “I don’t understand this constant insistence on correcting me when we already agree.”

“But I’m not correcting you, sir.”

“And is that statement not itself a correction? Or am I to take it some other way? I fear you’re too subtle for me, Miss Purity. You dazzle me with argument. My head spins.”

“Oh, I can’t imagine you ever being confused by anybody,” said Purity, laughing nervously.

“And again you feel the need to correct me. Is something troubling you? Is there some reason that you find it impossible to feel comfortable agreeing with me?”

“I’m perfectly comfortable to agree with you.”

“A statement which, while sweet of sentiment, does constitute yet another disagreement with my own prior statement. But let us set aside the fact that you are unable to accept a single word I utter at face value. What puzzles me, what I must have your help to clarify, is the matter of some missing information, and some extra information. For instance, your deposition includes several
extraneous persons whom no one else has seen. To wit: a lawyer named Verily Cooper, a riverman named Mike Fink, and a half-Black boy named Arthur Stuart.”

“But I’m not the only one who saw them,” said Purity.

“So the deposition is wrong?”

“I never said in the deposition that I was the only one who saw them.”

“Excellent! Who else was there at this witches’ sabbath?”

“What witches’ sabbath?” Purity was confused now.

“Did you say you stumbled upon this coven of witches as they frolicked naked on the banks of the river?”

“Two of them were bathing, but I saw no sign of anything more dire than that.”

“So to you, when witches cavort naked before your eyes, it is innocent bathing?”

“No, I just... I never thought of it as a... it wasn’t a worship of any kind.”

“But the tossing of the child toward heaven—a Black child, no less—and the way the naked man laughed at you, unashamed of his nakedness ...”

Purity was sure she had neither spoken of nor written down any such description. “How could you know of that?”

“So you admit that you did not include this vital evidence in your deposition?”

“I didn’t know it
was
evidence.”

“Everything is evidence,” said Quill. “Beings who frolic naked, laugh at Christians, and then disappear without a trace—which part of this experience would not be evidence? You must leave nothing out.”

“I see that now,” said Purity. “I reckon I didn’t know what a witches’ sabbath might look like, so I didn’t know when I saw it.”

“But if you didn’t know, why would you denounce
them?” asked Quill. “You haven’t brought a false accusation, have you?”

“No, sir! Every word I said was true.”

“Oh, and what about the words you did
not
say?”

Purity was even more confused. “But if I didn’t say them, how can I know which words they are?”

“But you know them. We just discovered them. The fact that it was a pagan bacchanal, with a naked man molesting a naked boy before your eyes—”

“Molest! He only tossed him in the air as a father might toss his own child, or an older brother might toss a younger.”

“So you think this might be incest as well?” asked Quill.

“All I ever thought was to report what they said of themselves, that Alvin Smith is the seventh son of a seventh son, with all the knacks that such men are prone to have.”

“So you believe the words of the devil concerning this?” asked Quill.

“The words of what devil?”

“The devil who spoke to you and told you that knacks just happen to come to seventh sons of seventh sons, when in fact witchcraft can only be practiced by those who have given themselves over to the service of Satan.”

“I didn’t understand that,” said Purity. “I thought it was the use of hidden powers that was the crime, all by itself.”

“Evil is never all by itself,” said Quill. “Remember that when you testify you will take an oath with your hand on the sacred scripture, the very word of God under your hand, which is the same as holding Christ by the hand, for he is the very Word. You will give oath to tell the truth, the
whole
truth. So you must not attempt to withhold any more information as you have been doing.”

“But I’ve withheld nothing! I’ve answered every question!”

“Again she must contradict the servant of God even when he speaks the plain truth. You withheld the information about pederasty, about the witches’ sabbath, about incest—and you attempted to pretend that this Alvin’s hidden powers came naturally from the order in which he was born within his family, even though it is impossible for any such devilish power to come from nature, for nature was born in the mind of God, while witchy powers come from the anti-Christ. Don’t you know that it is a terrible sin to bear false witness?”

“I do know it, and I told the truth as I understood it.”

“But you understand it better now, don’t you?” said Quill. “So when you testify, you will speak truly, won’t you, and name things as they truly were? Or do you intend to lie to protect your witch friends?”

“My—my
witch friends
?”

“Did you not swear that they were witches? Are you recanting that testimony?”

“I deny that they were friends of mine, not that they were witches.”

“But your deposition,” said Quill. “You seem to be retreating from that document as fast as you can.”

“I stand by every word in it.”

“And yet you claim these men were not your friends? You say that they pleaded with you to go with them as they continued their wicked journey through New England. Is this something they would ask of a stranger?”

“It must be so, since I was a stranger to them, and they asked me.”

“Beware of a defiant tone,” said Quill. “That will not help your cause in court.”

“Am I in court? Have I a cause there?”

“Haven’t you?” said Quill. “The only thing standing between you and the gallows is this deposition, your first feeble attempt to turn away from evil. But you must
understand that the love of Christ cannot protect you when you half-repent.”

“Turn away from evil? I have done no evil!”

“All men are evil,” said Quill. “The natural man is the enemy of God, that’s what Paul said. Are you therefore better than other people?”

“No, I’m a sinner like anyone else.”

“So I thought,” said Quill. “But your deposition shows that these men called you by name and begged you to go with them. Why would they do that, if they did not count you among their number, as a fellow witch?”

Purity was stunned. How could this have happened? She was the accuser, wasn’t she? And yet here she sat denounced by a witcher. “Sir, is it not as likely to be a sign that I was
not
among their number, and that they wished to persuade me?”

“But you do not describe a scene of seduction,” said Quill. “You do not tell us how the devil stood before you, his book open, waiting to write your name in it the moment you say that you consent.”

“Because he did not do that,” said Purity.

“So it was
not
a seduction, and the devil did
not
entice you to love and serve him.”

Purity remembered how she felt in the presence of Verily Cooper, the desires that washed over her when she saw how handsome he was, when she heard the clear intelligence of his speech.

“You are blushing,” said Quill. “I see that the spirit of God is touching you with shame at what you have withheld. Speak, and clear your conscience.”

“I didn’t think it was anything,” said Purity. “But yes, I did for a moment feel enticed by one of Alvin’s companions, the lawyer named Verily Cooper. I thought of it only as the feelings a girl my age might easily have toward a handsome man of good profession.”

“But you did not have those feelings toward a man of good profession,” said Quill. “You had them toward
a man that you yourself have called a witch. So now the picture is almost complete: You came upon a witches’ sabbath, unspeakable incestuous debauchery taking place between a naked man and a naked boy on the riverbank, and another witch caused you to feel sexual desire for him, and then they invite you to join them on their evil passage through New England, and at the end of this you dare to tell me they had
no
reason to think you might go along with them?”

“How can I know what reasons they had?”

Quill leaned across the table, his face full of love and sympathy toward her. “Oh, Miss Purity, you don’t have to hide it any longer. You have kept the secret for so long, but I know that long before you were brought to that witches’ sabbath, you were keeping your powers, hidden, the powers the devil gave you, concealing them from everyone around you, but secretly using them to gain advantage over your neighbor.”

Tears started flowing down Purity’s cheeks. She couldn’t help it.

“Doesn’t it feel better to tell the truth? Don’t you understand that telling the truth is how you say no to Satan?”

“Yes, I have a knack,” said Purity. “I have always been able to sense what a person feels, what they’re about to do.”

“Can you tell what
I
am about to do?”

Purity searched his face, searched her own heart. “Sir, I truly do not know you.”

“Thus the devil leaves you to fend for yourself in the hour of your need. Oh, Miss Purity, the devil is a false friend. Reject him! Turn away from him! Cease this pretense!”

“What pretense? I have confessed all!”

“Again she contradicts me. Don’t you understand that as long as you are contradicting me, the spirit of the devil is in you, forcing you to contend against those who serve God?”

“But I don’t know what more to confess.”

“Who told you the witches’ sabbath was to be held there on the riverbank that day?”

“No one told me,” said Purity. “I told you, I was walking along the path.”

“But is it your custom to walk along the river at that time of day?”

“No. No, I just read something in the library that made me think.”

“What was it you read?”

“Something about... witchcraft.”

Quill nodded, smiling. “Now, didn’t that feel better?”

Purity did not know what it was that should have felt better.

“You were thinking of your evil pact with Satan, and suddenly you found yourself walking along the river. Perhaps you flew, perhaps you walked—I hardly think that matters, though it is possible you flew without knowing that you flew—most people fly to the witches’ sabbath, often upon a broom, but I will not deny that some might walk. However it happened, you suddenly found yourself in the midst of a debauch so foul it shocked even a hardened witch such as yourself, and you longed to be cleansed of your deep wickedness, for having met souls even more lost than you, you remembered to fear God and so you came back with a story. It was still full of lies and you still left out much, but the key was there: You said the word
witch
, and you named a name. That is the beginning of redemption, to name the sin and repudiate the seducer.”

Though many of his statements were not at all the way she remembered it happening, nevertheless, the end of his statement was true. How could she not have seen it before? She was led there, and probably by the devil. And hadn’t she be filled with such terrible emotions that they had to warn her to be careful or she’d get herself denounced as a witch? Yes, she was one of them, they recognized her as one of them, and instead of accusing
them, she should have accused herself. The beginning of redemption. “Oh, I want to have the love of God again. Will you help me, Mr. Quill?”