Witch Child (18 page)

We went to sleep expecting it, but we woke thinking that the world was truly coming to an end. I do not share Martha’s fear of storms, but this was the most ferocious that I have ever known. Rebekah and I clutched each other as fearsome flashes lit the room white and blue. Thunder followed in less than a heartbeat, each crack louder and more terrible than the one before. Rain came down with furious force, drumming on the roof and the sides of the house. Above us the little ones cried out. The ladder creaked as Sarah went to them and their screams turned to whimpers of piteous fear.

Suddenly, through the storm’s rage, within the chaos of roaring sound, it was possible to hear a human voice raised in shrieking terror. But none was brave enough to see who it was, or to risk a soaking to offer succour.

The next morning dawned clear, the rain gone, but the storm had done much damage. Roads and paths washed away. Crops in the fields well nigh flattened. All the petals battered from Martha’s flowers.

It did not take us long to find who the night shrieker
was. Tom Carter. The old man who lives near the forest. He is one of the few single men to be allotted land here. A poor piece, all humps and stumps, and the hut he lives in is little more than a hovel. He does not grow much, rather makes his living by brewing strong liquor from what he finds in the forest.

The night of the storm, he went out into the trees to relieve himself, this is what he said. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning turned the blackness around him to day and he saw them, the white shapes of spirits flitting through the woods, fleeing from tree to tree.

The sight had him running for town, shirt half out, clutching his breeches about him, shrieking as though all the devils in Hell were streaming along behind him.

Some were inclined to laugh, especially those who saw him, and blame it on drinking his own stock, but others took a different view.

Apparitions and violent storms are to be taken seriously. Tom Carter was taken to tell his story to Reverend Johnson and Elias Cornwell. They took the still terrified Tom back to the forest, together with Jethro Vane, Nathaniel Clench and Ezekiel Francis, who are Selectmen and town constables, and other members of the Watch.

They have found something. The rumour spreads round the town faster than fire through stubble, but nobody knows just what.

Entry 91

They wasted no time. There was a hammering on the door. Martha opened it to find Jethro Vane and Ezekiel Francis standing there with another of the constables.

‘You two are to come with us.’

‘What for?’ Martha looked Francis in the eye. ‘Brother-in-law?’

‘Reverend’s orders.’ Ezekiel coloured like a turkey cock.

‘Are we arrested?’

‘No. But –’

Not yet, his eyes seemed to say.

‘Go your ways, then. I’ve got work to do. Hungry men to feed. Some haven’t got time to swan round the village bullying folk. They are out in the fields and expected directly.’

‘It’s Reverend’s orders.’

‘If the Reverend Johnson has business, he can come here to me.’

Jethro Vane made a move towards her, as if to take her by force, but the other two men held back. They looked at each other, quandary plain on their faces. This was not expected. They did not know what to do.

Finally, Ezekiel Francis said, ‘We’ll be back.’

They went, leaving Martha all in a heap. She took a moment to recover herself, then she told me, ‘Go and get Sarah. When they come back, we must all be together. Our hopes can’t rest on the men. They won’t be back ’til evening, never mind what I told him.’

They came in a bunch, turning the house into a court, Reverend Johnson and Nathaniel Clench with them. Nathaniel Clench is magistrate, there to ensure justice and fairness, but everyone knows he’s Johnson’s man.

‘Where were you last night, the night of the storm?’ Reverend Johnson did the questioning.

‘In bed, asleep,’ Martha answered.

‘Not you, Martha.’ He turned to me. ‘You.’

‘In bed asleep. The same as her.’

‘You did not leave the house?’

‘No.’

His eyebrows rose. Before he could disbelieve me, Sarah spoke.

‘She was with us. Our men are away so we stayed together. Mary slept with Rebekah beside her.’

Johnson had not expected this intervention. He looked at Sarah, snarling impatience, like an animal cheated of prey.

‘We were all together,’ she insisted, her voice calm and quiet.

Rebekah and Martha nodded to confirm what she said.

He turned to Rebekah.

‘And you did not leave? Either separate?’ He paused, a smile forming. His voice dropped until it was almost purring. ‘Or together?’

We shook our heads.

‘Why do you question us?’ Sarah asked. She was addressing Reverend Johnson, but her eyes blazed at the other men. Nathaniel Clench is brother-in-law to her. He dropped his eyes and stared at the floor.

‘I do not question you,’ Reverend Johnson answered. ‘I question them. There has been a gathering in the woods. We found evidence.’

‘A gathering? For what purpose?’

‘To conjure spirits, woman!’ Ezekiel Francis spoke up. ‘You must have heard about Tom Carter. He is a witness.’

‘Of what?’ Sarah sneered her contempt. ‘His own drunken imaginings.’

‘We have evidence of more than one female presence.’ Reverend Johnson looked at Rebekah and me. ‘Do you recognise these things?’

‘My daughter is with child!’ Sarah stepped forward, thoroughly riled now. ‘Do you think she would risk that unborn life to cavort in the woods at night?’ She shook her head. ‘No. You must look elsewhere.’

‘Perhaps they left without you noticing.’ Ezekiel’s squinted eyes closed further.

‘There’s only one door in our house. They would have to clamber over me to get to it. Or do you suggest
I
joined them?’ Her tone could have frozen water. ‘That is the way such questions lead, is it not?’

She fixed the men with her icy stare. Her brother-in-law, Nathaniel Clench, looked even more uncomfortable. Some of the others with him. Martha and I were easy game, but Sarah Rivers was a different matter. She was well-connected, she and John highly respected.

‘We suggest nothing of the kind.’ Johnson noticed Clench’s reaction and stirrings among the other men and gestured for Francis to be quiet. ‘It still remains the case that these things were found and that they are female garments.’

I stepped forward to inspect them. A cap and a petticoat. Both much creased and trampled with forest dirt and still damp from the night before.

‘These would fit neither of us. The petticoat is too large for me, but too small for Rebekah. The cap is too small for either.’

The cap was so tiny that it could have belonged to a child. The hem of the petticoat was decorated with open embroidery work.

‘Why come to us? You must find a girl little bigger than a child, and one who wears vanities under her clothing.’

I looked at Jethro Vane. The description fitted his nieces, not us, and he knew it.

Entry 92

Sarah was loud in her indignation that suspicion should have fallen upon us, but Martha and I remained silent. We know how these things can go. She has spoken to John, but he has advised caution. He thinks that there will be some simple explanation and then the whole thing will blow over like a summer storm.

Entry 93 (July? 1660)

Sure enough, Deborah Vane and Hannah have been questioned, and sure enough they have conjured a suitable tale between them. They had plenty of warning and time in which to do so.

Their story goes in this way. They were walking in the woods, days since, and were suddenly so overcome by heat that they had to remove some of their clothing and, oh yes, it was a petticoat, and it was a cap. They walked on, still much fatigued, and in a moment of forgetfulness they neglected to bring said garments from the forest.

They are believed. Of course they are. They are the nieces of Jethro Vane and he is a powerful man in the town.

g

Witness

Entry 94 (July-August, 1660)

I write this as fast as can be and put it into the quilt. Stitch and write, stitch and write far into the night.

The girls
were
out there on that night, conjuring spirits. I know it as sure as if I had been out there with them. The storm broke over them, causing them to stop whatever nonsense they were performing and run in panic. That’s when Tom Carter saw them.

I thought that would stop them. But it did not.

They were nearly caught, that should have been
warning enough. What happened on Midsummer Night
should have put an end to their madness. Instead they feed upon it. Now they believe they have the power to conjure storms. They lose flesh, their eyes burn. I know the witch’s calendar. Each month, as the moon waxes to full, the girls’ antic behaviour increases. Hannah has been removed twice from Sunday Service for interrupting sermons, talking loudly, then falling to giggling and laughing uncontrollably. What they do is like a sickness, a fever in the blood. They practise not just in the forest, but in barns, in each other’s houses. I have been keeping watch. I have seen the candle flicker, the shadow of dancing figures turning on the walls.

Entry 95 (September, 1660)

The woods begin to colour. The fields ripen towards autumn, but the turning year has brought a series of afflictions: beasts dead for no reason, others giving milk that is thick and yellow, bloody in the pail, then a tremendous hailstorm which beat the crops down. It is as if a dismal black cloud has settled over the town, a sense of foreboding, as though something bad is about to happen.

Reverend Johnson has ordered a Day of Humiliation,
of solemn prayer and fasting, a time for us to ask for God’s forgiveness, for we have attracted His displeasure.

Entry 96

The Day of Humiliation.

He had barely started his sermon when there was a commotion. Hannah Vane pitched forward from her seat in a dead faint. Then Deborah went down beside her and her cousin with her. The girls were falling off their benches like frozen starlings. Reverend Johnson stopped and ordered them taken out. They were carried, some rigid and unbending as timbers, others flopping and heavy so it took two men to bear them.

‘The affliction has spread to the community, to the children. It is a very great wonder ... ’

Reverend Johnson spoke in a whisper, his face set in thunder, his eyes wide and deep with fear.

Entry 97

The girls are no better. Some are struck dumb and lie as if dead, others rant and rave, tearing at themselves, and their clothing, cursing and swearing at all who go near them. Pressured by Jethro Vane and others, Reverend Johnson has sent Elias Cornwell to Salem for help, for a doctor.

Meanwhile, rumours abound. Fragments of stories are passed from person to person. When pieced together, they get near to the truth of what has happened.

This from Martha, who got it from her sister, Anne Francis.

Deborah and Hannah Vane, Sarah Garner and Elizabeth Denning and others unknown were found in a barn, dancing naked. A farmer heard his beasts lowing, and from the noises they were making he knew that something had disturbed them. He went to see what it was, armed with his musket, thinking it might be Indians stealing from him. When he opened the doors, he saw the girls scrambling away, trying to hide in bales of hay.

This from Jonah who got it from Tom Carter.

Not just any farmer. Jeremiah Vane himself. Brother to Jethro, chief Selectman of the town. He caught his own daughters and one of his nieces. In great fear, he bid them get dressed, and then he swore them to secrecy, making them promise never to do it again. No-one need ever have known about it. Except ...

This from Rebekah, who got it from Tobias, who in turn was told by Ned Cardwell.

Ned was up in the loft spying on them. He’d done it before. This dancing, according to him, being a regular thing. Ned is Jethro Vane’s hired man. Vane is a bad master and an old skinflint. Ned sees a way of getting something out of him. He goes to Vane, demanding his freedom and money to set up on his own. He wants Deborah as well, if the old man’s got a mind to it, or Ned will go to Johnson, tell him that one of Vane’s daughters and two of his nieces are making free with Old Nick. Vane says he will think on it. Ned tells Deborah that her uncle better think quick, or he will tell all he knows.

Deborah tells Hannah, who is half-crazed anyway, and she seeks refuge in madness. The other girls follow her lead. All are mad now.

I explained all this to Rebekah since she fails to make sense of it.

Why pretend to be possessed? She cannot see the point of it. She cannot see how it makes them less guilty.

‘Yes it does,’ I tried to explain. ‘If they are possessed by the Devil, or some other spirit, then
they
are not responsible for what they do, the spirit is.’

Rebekah looked at me curiously. ‘How do you know so much about it?’

I looked at her. She is older than me, but seems younger, even though she is a woman now, and with child. She has put on flesh, her cheeks bloom. She is happy with Tobias, the house he is building is almost ready for her. I pray that this will not blight their lives together.

‘Better that you don’t know.’

I turned away, trying to master my terror. The burden of guilt will not lie with the afflicted. They will look about, eager to blame another, and I fear it will be myself. These girls have ever hated me. Deborah particularly, and she is their leader. She has been riven by jealousy of Rebekah, and is certain that I have thwarted her at every turn.

Entry 98

A doctor came from Salem, brought by Elias Cornwell. He took one look at the girls and announced that no physick could cure this sickness. The madness was caused by witchcraft. He confirmed what Reverend Johnson had thought all along. The doctor was dismissed and Nathaniel Clench has sent Cornwell to find someone who can prove the presence of witchcraft. There is one newcomer to the Colony, so Cornwell says, who has this kind of knowledge.

After him the magistrates will come, and the judges. The statute is clear. If any man or woman be a witch, they shall be put to death.

According to Exodus 22:18: ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’

According to Leviticus 20:27: ‘A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death.’

God’s Law rules here.

Entry 99 (October? 1660)

These are, perhaps, the last words that I will ever write. Scribing them takes precious time, and I go in great fear of my life, but I feel that I must bear witness.

The man they have been awaiting has come.

Today was declared another Day of Humiliation. All were called to Service in the Meeting House. There could be no exceptions. Absence would be seen as an admission of guilt.

The place was full. The afflicted girls were at the front. Some sat slumped, others lay on pallets. It had started with five girls: Deborah, Hannah, their cousin Judith Vane, Sarah Garner and Elizabeth Denning. Now there were more. They have a whole bench to themselves. Hannah Vane sat at the end, mumbling to herself, twirling a poppet. She is allowed such things, being but a child. She is no child. As we took our places, she grabbed the doll about the middle, bunching the material, twisting viciously. Next to me Rebekah doubled, clutching her stomach. She gasped that her pains have started, the baby is coming early. I looked at Hannah, head rolling, tongue lolling. Her eyes gleamed malice, and her sharp little teeth smiled at me, then she resumed her idiot dumbshow.

Sarah and Martha helped Rebekah to rise. I went with them to take her outside. We found our way barred. Two Tithingmen stood before the door.

‘None may leave. Orders of Reverend Johnson.’

‘Would you have her bear her child in the Meeting House?’ Sarah’s voice rang loud enough to reach our menfolk. Tobias and Jonah started up from their places, John Rivers with them.

The Tithingmen looked at each other. Neither is a man to go against orders.

Elias Cornwell appeared from nowhere.

‘They may leave.’ His voice silky with feigned mercy. ‘Not you, Mary. You must stay.’ He whispered close. His fish breath in my ear. His thin hand forcing me back to my place. He nodded to the men behind me and made his way to the front.

All was quiet. Even the afflicted girls ceased their gibbering when Reverend Johnson came into the room.

He was not alone. He had another one with him. Not Elias Cornwell, he had stationed himself next to the afflicted girls, someone no-one had seen before. Except me.

I watched in a trance, as if scrying my own past, as Obadiah Wilson mounted the pulpit. He moved slowly, holding on to the rail that winds up the side of it. He stood at the top, knuckles white on the rounded balustrade. I knew it was him, even though his hair was thinner, his pale face had withered and fever spots showed high on his drawn cheeks. And he knew me. He looked over the heads of all those gathered in front of him, pale eyes questing, until he found me. He began to speak then, but was suddenly overcome with coughing. He stopped his mouth with his handkerchief. He took it away, the white linen spotted bright with blood, and began again.

‘There is one among you ... ’ His voice was low and hoarse, pitched only a little above a whisper, like corn husks rubbing together, but it rang around the hall like a clarion call. ‘There is one among you who comes as a wolf among sheep. There is one among you who bears the mark of the beast!’

He stood, black arm extended, his bony finger pointing straight at me.

His thin chest heaved as he took in breath to say more, but Hannah had already risen from her place. She has not spoken a coherent sentence since the beginning of her affliction. Now she was shouting:

‘Mary! It is Mary! She comes to me in spirit!’

Cries went up round the hall.

‘She speaks! She speaks!’

‘The spell is broken!’

‘Praise be the Lord!’

Then they all rose up, all the other girls together, and called with one voice:

‘Mary! Mary! Mary!’ They turned, pointing where Obadiah Wilson’s finger was pointing. ‘Mary! Mary! Mary!’

‘Does she bring another with her?’ Obadiah Wilson’s
voice whispered, insistent, down from the pulpit.

‘She brings the Devil with her! She bids me write in his book!’ Hannah answered. Suddenly she yelped, as if pinched or stung. Her face contorted and her hands raked her body, scratching, pulling at her clothes. ‘She afflicts me! She sends herself against me! Don’t, Mary! Don’t, Mary!’

‘Don’t, Mary! Don’t, Mary!’ They all began to shake and judder, like puppets strung together. ‘She shadows me! I freeze! I freeze!’

The Reverend Cornwell stepped forward, touching one girl after another.

‘They are cold!’ His tone was one of wonder. ‘’Tis true! ’Tis true!’

‘Now she is a bird!’ Hannah waved her hands towards the rafters. ‘See how she flies! She flies!’

The girls stared up as one, necks straining, heads weaving back and forth as though following a fluttering movement only they could see.

Obadiah Wilson needed no more.

‘Seize her! Bring her to me!’

His hoarse voice rasped the order and Reverend Johnson signalled to the Tithingmen standing at the door. They stepped forward to take me, but the place was descending into uproar. All around people were rising, jostling each other to see what was happening. Girls were crying out from all over the room, flailing about, falling and fainting. I ducked down, dodging elbows, stepping over the bench, to get to the back of the room. Tobias had seen me. He left his place on the men’s benches and lifted the bar on the door. I slipped out under his arm and the door shut behind me. I heard him slide the bar back and saw the door bulge as he settled his bulk against it.

I have taken refuge in Rebekah’s borning room. Rebekah is near her time, very near. Martha says they will not dare to enter here. Sarah has brought me what I asked for: food, boy’s clothing, a blanket. I take the moccasins and the little leather pouch from my box and put it round my neck. My few precious things. All I have to show for my life so far lived. All I have to take with me to the wilderness. I must take my chances there. If I stay here, I hang for sure. I want to stay. I want to see the baby safe delivered. Rebekah’s birth pains come closer together, it will not be long now, but I can stay no longer. Martha hovers like a frightened bird and

Mary’s diary ends here.