Suffer a Witch (8 page)

“I do,” Em said. She smiled at him. “More than a little bit.”

He slowly turned to look at her. She nodded.

“Everyone loves George,” he said.

“Everyone does love George,” Em said.

“So you . . .”

“No.” Em’s hands surrounded his face. She looked deep into his dark eyes. For the second time today, her voice slipped into her ancient accent. “I believe we’re two halves to a whole.”

“But Giles and Isaac and . . .” George shook his head.

“You know this.” Em’s voice was low. “You said it first in 1681, when we were in Salem Village.”

His head went up in a slight nod. She leaned forward and kissed his lips.

“Why didn’t you
tell
me?” George said in an accent similar to hers yet completely foreign to the modern man.

“Tell you what?” Em asked. She pulled back to look at him.

“About Benoni,” George said.

Em groaned.

“You’re angry over something Alice made up?” Em asked.

“I’m angry that you . . .” George started. “Something Alice
made up
?”

Em nodded.

“Who was Benoni’s father?” George asked.

Em looked away from him.

“You know, I’ve thought about it all day,” George said. “Benoni had just started his apprenticeship the spring before we were hanged.”

Em nodded.

“He was ten,” George said.

“Eleven,” Em nodded.

“Henry died in 1684,” George said.

“I guess so,” Em said.

“Benoni was mulatto,” George said in a low voice.

“That’s what the neighbors said,” Em said. “They also thought I was a witch.”

“I never thought he was . . . dark,” George said.

She waved her hand over his head. His long, grey hair and kindly, wrinkled face gave way to long jet-black hair, a bushy black beard which covered the deep facial scars dug by war, and darker, suntanned skin. George looked like the dark Celtic warrior he’d been in Salem Village. George’s eyes flicked to the mirror on the wall. For a moment, he looked at himself; then he looked at her.

“Your skin is darker than mine,” Em said. “But together, we’re not as light as some.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell me?” he asked finally.

“I don’t have anything to say,” Em said. “Henry was very ill. Thomas was a baby. I got pregnant. That’s what I know.”

For a moment, George watched her.

“Was the baby Henry’s? Probably not, but maybe. Yours? Possibly, but we were together only twice. Or . . .” Em looked away from him. “In 1681, I couldn’t have conceived of the science we know now. Eggs. Sperm. Moment of conception. Little tests you buy at the store. All of that.”

Em shrugged.

“I fell pregnant. And Henry was still ill, and Thomas was still a toddler.”

“Something else happened,” George said. “After I left?”

“You were in Salem Village.” Em made a slight nod.

“Indians?” George asked.

Em nodded. George looked at her for a moment and then nodded.

“Henry was ill,” Em repeated. “Thomas was a baby.”

“Why didn’t I know?” George asked.

“Your Hannah had just died,” Em said. “You were confused by Henry and Thomas. You had three babies who desperately needed their father and a bickering congregation and all that ridiculousness about your payment.”

“They wouldn’t pay me,” George nodded. “I had to take out loans and . . . We were broke. The pressure was . . .”

“Tremendous,” Em said. “I wanted to be a place of peace and joy for you. I wanted to be the place where you felt your burdens lifted, if only for an hour. I needed my own burdens lifted. I looked forward with tremendous joy to your visits, even if we only drank tea and talked about Christ.”

“I did as well,” George smiled. “My time with you has always been the highlight of my life — then and now.”

“Takes three hundred years to finally talk about it,” Em said.

George smiled.

“Benoni was a wonderful person,” George said. “He came every night to take care of us that first year, after you had left for Boston.”

Em smiled.

“I took him home to England with me,” George said.

“And came back with his daughter,” Em said. “I know.”

“She was like a granddaughter to me,” George said.

“Why did you marry Sarah?” Em asked.

“You had Henry,” George shrugged. “He was ill, but he wasn’t dead. Thomas was young. I was a pastor with a large congregation and three children under the age of three. I needed a wife. Sarah had just been widowed.”

George shrugged.

“I never would have guessed that her brother-in-law, Hathorne, would . . .”

“Examine us for witchcraft?” Em asked. “Set the bullshit in motion so that we were hanged?”

George gave a curt nod.

“I always felt like he was angry with me for how I treated Sarah, and . . .” George abruptly stopped talking.

“And me,” Em said.

He turned to look at her.

“Alice says that everyone in Salem Village knew that you loved me,” Em said. “Even Sarah.”

He raised an eyebrow in acknowledgment. He looked away in shame.

“Sarah was the mother of four of your children,” Em said. “They were great kids.”

George turned to look at her.

“You knew them?” George asked.

“Of course,” Em said. “I tried to help them when they came to Boston. I worked with orphans, and they were orphans. I don’t think they ever guessed who I was.”

“There’s so much we haven’t talked about,” George said.

“Why did you marry Giles?” George asked.

“He was almost eighty years old,” Em said. “He needed someone to care for him — cook, clean, that kind of thing. He was fairly addled; still is.”

“That’s the truth,” George said.

“I’d spent all that time caring for Henry that it seemed fairly natural,” Em said. “Giles was kind to Benoni and helped Thomas join the church.”

“His testimony sealed your fate,” George said.

“He was pressed to death for his efforts,” Em said.

Out of words, they stared straight ahead and listened to their own thoughts.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” George asked.

Em chuckled.

“Why is that funny?” he asked.

“You are the most stubborn man I’ve ever met,” Em said. “You’re like a dog with a bone. You won’t set it down even when you know all the facts.”

George grinned.

“You know as much as I do,” Em said.

“I do?”

“You do,” Em said.

George nodded but didn’t respond. In response to his silence, Em picked up a ball of yarn and needles from a basket next to the couch. George raised his eyebrows to ask what she was making.

“Socks for my man,” Em said. “Your socks are destroyed. It will be winter soon enough, and you’ll be out with the homeless again.”

He smiled at her. “You are good at taking care of your man.”

“Thank you, sir,” Em said with a nod.

George put his arm around her, and she nestled into him.

“What I want to know is why all this is coming up now,” Em said. “I’ve seen Alice at least once a week for more than two hundred years. She’s never asked about the Putnams or Benoni. Suddenly, she wants to know what happened to them and who Ben’s father was and . . .”

“I want to know what Ann Hibbins meant by ‘Good luck,’” George said.

“That did seem ominous,” Em said. “Any ideas?”

“You did just see John Parker’s demon inside,” George said.

“I wonder if something is happening astrologically,” Em said.

“Astrology?” George sneered.

Em laughed.

“We’re witches, George,” Em said. “Astrology goes with the territory!”

“Feels . . . anti-Christ to me,” George said.

“Oh,” Em said with a sigh. “I doubt Christ cares about astrology.”

“What would he worry about then?” George asked.

“How ’bout the demon inside John Parker?” Em asked.

“Mmm.”

The way George made the sound, he could have been agreeing or disagreeing with Em. She looked up from her knitting to find him looking at her.

“What?” Em asked.

“I’ve wondered what it would have been like to have married you then, in Salem,” George said.

“I doubt I would have had so many kids,” Em said.

“No birth control.”

George wiggled his eyebrows to remind her of how much he liked sex. She laughed. They fell silent. The only sound was the clicking of Em’s knitting needles.

“I don’t know,” George said, finally.

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know why all this Salem Village crap has come up now,” George said. “While I was running yesterday, I was thinking of suing to finally get my salary.”

“Suing the heirs for your salary from 1680?” Em smiled.

“Plus interest,” George nodded.

Em laughed.

“What?” George asked.

“Dog. Bone,” Em said.

George laughed. When his laughter faded, he turned to Em.

“You’re the most powerful witch I’ve ever met,” George said. “Use your skills, Em. Why is this here now?”

“You know what?” Em asked.

“What?”

“I’ve given enough time today to all this crap,” Em said. “Ann’s ceremony, questions from Alice, now this. I realized we’ve had an abnormally long life. I still don’t want to waste it. I’d rather enjoy today.”

“But . . .”

Em set her knitting down and got up from her seat. She gave him an alluring look before heading toward the bedroom. When he didn’t follow her, she pulled off her top and dropped it on the floor. She was unzipping her pants at the door to the bedroom. She turned to look at him.

“Dog,” he said. “Bone.”

Em made a sharp whistle.

“Come!” she ordered.

Laughing, he followed her into the bedroom.

“I don’t know why
she
has to be here,” Giles’s young wife whined.

Not two feet away, Em was perched on a stool in Giles’s large, gourmet kitchen, trying to remember the young wife’s name. ‘Beverly,’ who went by ‘Bevy’? No, that was the last one. Em squinted at the peas she was shucking. Josey was the one before that. Surely, she knew this wife’s name. She glanced at George, who gave her an amused grin and turned back to washing blueberries in the sink.

“She just marches in here every month and . . .” the young wife continued.

Giles gave Em a dark look and closed the door to the kitchen. Sarah Wildes sashayed into the kitchen carrying a basket of raspberries. Her flowing, calf-length sundress with the wide, flowered skirt gave her the air of an eternal flower child.

“She acts like
she
is your wife!” The young wife’s bellow came through the door.

Sarah Wildes snorted a laugh. She dumped her raspberries into a crate on the kitchen counter and went outside to pick more. Every month, they carpooled to Giles’s horse ranch, near the border of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, to spend the weekend working in his five-acre organic garden. This was the Fourth of July weekend, and everyone, except the Amish Susannah and Mary Eastey, had come. Of course, Sarah Good had flown her helicopter in from New York City.

The Puritans were farmers at heart. They relished the sweaty, dirty work as well as the planning that made the garden work. Plus, Giles always said there was no human on Earth who worked harder and enjoyed it more than the Puritans. He was right.

Their hard work was rewarded with more food than they could possibly eat. Giles sold the rest to a high-end, Michelin-starred restaurant down the block. This month, they were harvesting the fruits and vegetables they’d planted in the spring.

“We think we’ve picked enough B-strawberries for preserves,” Wilmot said as she came into the kitchen.

“That was fast,” Em said. “And A’s?”

“Sam has those in the packing shed,” Wilmot said. “We’ve sold those to the restaurant.”

Em nodded. Ever the bookkeeper, Wilmot kept track of this endeavor from the first seed to the last harvest. Her prudent guidance had made their garden efforts profitable year after year.

“
Crash!
” A glass shattered as it hit the door in the next room. Wilmot scowled.

“The new wife?” Wilmot asked.

“Em’s acting like Giles’s wife,” George said.

Wilmot smiled. Em leaned in.

“What’s her name?” Em whispered to Wilmot.

“Nancy,” Wilmot said.

“No,” George said. “That was last century. This is Treena.”

“Trixie,” Wilmot said. “That’s right.”

She waved her hand, and an image of Giles and Trixie’s wedding invitation floated in the air.

“Trixie, it is, then,” George said before closing the vision with a swipe of his hand.

There was a loud scuffle in the next room. Em nodded to George. He dried his hands on a kitchen towel and took off his apron. When he walked past Em, she patted his rear. He grinned at her.

“Everything okay in here?” George leaned in the room.

Trixie said something in a high-pitched scream, and George went into the room. Not missing a beat, Wilmot asked, “Are we cooking here or at your house?”

Em chuckled.

“What?” Wilmot batted her eyes. “Just a question.”

“Here,” Em said. “Giles has everything laid out. I thought he’d . . .”

Giles stormed into the kitchen from the other room.

“Are the strawberries picked yet?” he growled.

Not willing to even look at Em, he addressed the room as a whole.

“Yes, Giles,” Wilmot said.

She took his arm and led him out toward the back. Near the door to the garden, she turned to Em and winked. Em smiled at Wilmot before turning her full attention to the peas. It would have been easy to use magic to shuck these peas, but Em liked to do them by hand. Magic always left a mark. Magic-shucked peas had tiny bruises on them. While only a witch could see the marks, Em felt certain they affected the taste. She didn’t mind the work. After a few hundred years of practice, she was fast and efficient.

A few minutes later, George opened the door and guided Trixie out.

“
Mrs.
Corey had planned to freeze these peas,” George said to Em.

“Great,” Em said.

“She’s a little intimidated by all of us,” George said.

“We have a lot of experience with farming,” Em nodded. “That’s for sure.”

“I told her that I would help her with the peas,” George said.

Em handed him the bowl of shucked peas. She picked up the bowl full of pea shells.

“I’ll head out to help Bridget and Sarah Good,” Em said. She dumped pea shells into the trashcan they were using to collect clippings for the compost and wiped her wet hands on her jeans.

“Good idea,” George grinned at Em.

She smiled and walked toward the door. She was almost there when the wife said, “I don’t know how you stand her,” to George. She could almost hear him grinning at her back.

“I don’t know how you can stand her,” Sarah Good said in a high voice to imitate Trixie. Wearing a pair of designer overalls specifically tailored to her, she looked like a cross between a Midwestern farmer and a rapper. Em smiled at her. Sarah Good hooked her elbow with Em’s, and they walked toward the broccoli patch.

“Giles likes them dumb,” Sarah Good said.

“Don’t I know it,” Em said in a tone that clearly referred to herself.

Sarah Good laughed. Bridget looked up from the broccoli to wave them over. When they got near, Bridget stood up.

“Slugs,” Bridget said.

“I thought we put out slug bait the last time we were here,” Em said.

“The wife took them away,” Bridget said. In an irritated imitation of the new wife, she added, “Why waste good beer on some old vegetable that nobody eats?”

Em scowled. The restaurant bought every piece of broccoli they grew. She dropped down to pick the slugs off a foot-tall broccoli plant. She tossed them into a bucket with an inch of vinegar in it. The plants would heal quickly, but someone would have to harvest the broccoli in a week or so. That put them close to the next hanging anniversary, on July 19
th
. Em scowled.

“She’s a menace,” Bridget said about Giles’s wife.

“She hates Em,” Sarah Good said. She dropped to a large broccoli plant and began picking off the slugs.

“If it wasn’t Em, it would be another one of us,” Bridget said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Em asked.

“She hates you because she knows you can handle it,” Bridget said.

“Why does she have to hate someone?” Em asked.

“I think George is right — she’s intimidated,” Sarah Good said. “We’re all super successful, hardworking, and we like each other. She’s an outsider. Wouldn’t you be intimidated?”

Em shrugged. Catching her look, Bridget pointed to her and laughed. When Bridget laughed, Sarah Good looked at her and followed her finger to Em. She looked back at Bridget.

“Em’s not intimidated by anyone,” Bridget said.

“That’s not exactly true,” Em said. “I’m just not intimidated by her.”

Somewhere in the field, John Willard’s distinctive baritone voice began to sing Psalm 64, one of their favorite hymns. In Salem Village, every Puritan had taken it as a sacred duty to sing the psalms at least once a week. Now, most of them sang only while they worked. Because George still sang the psalms every day, he usually got them started. Since George was stuck inside, John began. They joined him in song, with Psalm 64 slipping into the rest of the Psalms.

“Em?” Sarah Good asked.

Singing, Em didn’t hear her. Sarah Good reached through the plants to touch Em’s arm. Em looked up. Sarah Good opened her mouth to say something. Her eyes echoed insecurity. Sarah Good shook her head and looked down at the broccoli plant in front of her.

“Sarah?” Em asked. “What is it?”

Bridget stopped singing to watch them. She looked at Em and then at Sarah Good.

“I . . .” Sarah started.

Sarah Good realized Bridget was looking at her. She shook her head and focused on the broccoli plant. Em and Bridget got up and went to her. Sarah Good stood up.

“What is it?” Em asked. “You’re worrying me.”

“I . . .” Sarah Good started again.

Bridget put her hand on Sarah Good’s shoulder.

“I keep seeing Dorothy,” Sarah Good whispered.

“Dorothy?” Em asked.

“Your daughter?” Bridget asked.

Sarah Good nodded.

“Not like she was when she died,” Sarah Good said. “She’s four years old again.”

Hearing a girl’s giggle, Em instinctively turned toward the sound. Sure enough, Sarah Good’s daughter Dorothy ran from behind Giles’s house. Wearing a traditional ankle-length, deep-blue cotton dress and a white hat, the child smiled as she ran toward them. When she was close, she stopped running and looked at them. As if seeing them was a delightful surprise, she burst out laughing and took off running. The child ran with such joy that she seemed to dance across the fertile earth. Dorothy disappeared into the cornfield where John was working.

“Johnny?” Bridget asked in a loud voice.

The singing abruptly ended. They heard John’s feet run to the edge of the field.

“Everything okay, Bridg?” John asked.

“Did you see . . .?” Em started.

“What?” John asked.

“Dorothy,” Bridget said. “We just saw her.”

John’s face fell with sorrow. He shook his head. At four and a half years old, Dorothy had been charged with witchcraft in Salem Village all those years ago. The child spent the better part of a year clapped in chains and wearing shackles like everyone charged with witchcraft. If she ever acted like a child, her hands were tied behind her back and she was hung from her wrists in strappado. After Sarah Good was hanged, Em and the others had done their best to care for and protect Dorothy. They’d loved Dorothy like a daughter. But in such wretched, desperate conditions, their love was nowhere near what the child needed. The poor girl went mad when her mother was hanged.

“She was here?” John asked. The sorrow in his voice was apparent.

Em and Bridget nodded. Still crying, Sarah Good stared at the ground.

“I see her all the time,” Sarah Good said. “At work. At home. I came home yesterday, and I’d swear she was sitting on the bed, petting my dog, Rufus.”

“The Rottweiler?” Bridget asked.

Sarah Good nodded. John jogged over to them. He gave Sarah Good a tight hug.

“There was nothing you could have done,” John said. “Not one thing.”

In his strong, tight embrace, Sarah Good began to sob. The sound of her sorrow brought the others. Dorothy was like a gaping wound. Each in their own way, they felt the terrible strain of responsibility tinged with helplessness. When Sam joined them, Em pointed toward the cornfield. He left to see if he could find Dorothy. He returned a few minutes later. When Em looked at him, he shook his head.

Dorothy was not there.

Em nodded to Sam. She wondered if Dorothy had been some kind of shared vision or if she’d actually been there.

“More stuff from ancient history,” Alice said in a low tone.

Hearing Alice, Sarah Good said between sobs, “What the hell is going on? All this Salem Village crap keeps coming up.”

Mary Ayer put her arm around Sarah Good’s shoulders.

“Hand to God,” Sarah Good said. “Last night, I woke up from a dead sleep and could have sworn that my husband Will — the lying bastard who testified at my trial — was lying next to me in bed. My children were small and sleeping around our bed, like they did when we stayed in someone’s guest bedroom. I could feel Mercy stir inside me. I thought, ‘All is well.’ I was almost asleep before I realized it wasn’t real. I felt so . . .”

“Peaceful,” Ann Pudeator said.

“Real,” Alice said. “Like all of this is a dream, and that . . .”

“Is reality,” Martha Carrier whispered.

“You mean it’s happened to you?” Sarah Good asked.

Everyone but Em nodded.

“It hasn’t happened to you, Em?” Alice asked.

Em shook her head.

“I don’t know whether to feel sorry for you or . . .” John started.

“Jealous,” Sarah Wildes said. “I wake up smelling my thick, sweet jasmine patch, the one I had around my house in Salem Village. I feel so . . . safe, hopeful, at peace, in a way that I haven’t felt since . . .”

Sarah Wildes’ fingertips stroked her throat. Sarah Good held out her arms, and the women hugged.

“I’ve had this dream every night this week,” Giles said. Surprised that he’d spoken in the crowd, they turned to stare at him. “I was on Salem Farm. Martha and I had just been married. I was lying in bed thinking that I was finally safe. The kids had taken over the farm. Martha was there. I mean, I knew about George, but he was gone, in Maine, out of the way. And . . . I knew she’d take care of me to the end.”